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OAKST.HDSF 


LIFE  AND  TO-MORROW 


The  Works  of  John  Oliver  Hobbes 


Crown  8vo,  cloth,  6/-. 
The  Dream  and  the  Business. 
The  Serious  Wooing. 
The  Flute  of  Pan. 
Love  and  the  5oul  Hunters. 
The  Vineyard. 
The  School  for  Saints. 
Robert  Orange. 
The  Herb  Moon. 

The  Gods,  Some  Mortals,  and  Lord  Wickenham. 
The  Tales  of  John  Oliver  Hobbes. 


Crown  8vo,  cloth,  1/-  net. 
Love  and  the  Soul  Hunters. 

Some  Emotions  and  a  Moral,  and  The  Sinner's  Comedy. 

1  vol. 

A  Study  in  Temptations,  and  a  Bundle  of  Life.  1  vol. 


Tales  about  Temperaments.  Crown  8vo,  cloth,  2s.  6d.  net. 
The  Wisdom  of  the  Wise.    Crown  8vo,  paper,  2s.  net: 

cloth,  3s.  6d.  net. 
The   Ambassador.     Crown  8vo,  paper,  i2s.  net;  cloth, 

3s.  6d.  net. 
Imperial  India.   Paper,  Is. ;  cloth,  2s. 


SIXPENNY  EDITIONS,  in  paper  covers. 
Love  and  the  Soul  Hunters.   6d.  net. 
A  Study  in  Temptations,  and  a  Bundle  of  Life.    6d.  net. 
Some  Emotions  and  a  Moral,  and  The  Sinner's  Comedy. 

6d.  net. 

Some  Emotions  and  a  Moral.  6d. 
Robert  Orange.  6d. 
The  School  for  Saints.  6d. 
The  Vineyard.  6d. 

The  Qods,  Some  Mortals,  and  Lord  Wickenham.  6d. 


LONDON :  T.  FISHER  UNWIN. 


OF  fHE 


LIFE  AND  TO-MORROW 


SELECTIONS  FROM  THE  WRITINGS 

OF 

JOHN  OLIVER  HOBBES 


Arranged  by 

ZOE  PROCTER 


"This  is  only  Sorrow 
For  To-Day  ; 
Life  begins  To-Morrow." 


LONDON 
T    FISHER  UNWIN 
ADELPHI  TERRACE 
MCMVII 


(All  rights  reserved.) 


PEARL  MARY-TERESA 


Puisqu'ici-bas  toute  4me 
Donne  a  qnelqu'nn 

Sa  musique,  sa  flamme, 
Ou  son  parfum; 

Je  te  donne  ^  cette  heure, 

Penche  sur  toi, 
La  chose  la  meilleure 

Que  j'aie  en  moi ! 


I  HAVE  to  acknowledge,  with  many  thanks, 
the  kind  permission  given  to  me  by  Mr.  Morgan 
Richards,  Mr.  T.  Fisher  Unwin,  Mr.  John  Lane, 
Mr.  Werner  Laurie,  Messrs.  Burns  and  Gates, 
Mr.  Sidney  Appleton,  Messrs.  Chapman  and  Hall, 
Mr.  W.  L.  Courtney,  Mrs.  George  Cornwallis 
West,  Sir  George  Newnes,  the  Editor  of  the 
Daily  Mail  and  the  Editor  of  the  Tribune,  to 
make  extracts  from  the  books  and  articles  by 
Mrs.  Craigie  of  which  they  hold  the  copyright, 
and  I  have  also  to  thank  Mr.  Curtis  Brown  for 
his  courtesy  in  allowing  me  to  use  the  photo- 
graph, reproduced  as  a  frontispiece. 

Z.  P. 


i 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

I.  Love        .         .         ,         .         .         .  11 

II.  Men  and  Women      .         .         .         .  89 

III.  Feibndship  ,         .         .         .  .63 

IV.  Marriage      .....  71 
V.  Youth  and  Age  .         .         .         .  .81 

VI.  Human  Nature        ....  87 

VII.  Life         ......  107 

VIII.  Sentiment     .....  115 

IX.  Ideals      ......  119 

•X.  Art  and  Artists      ....  133 

XI.  The  Drama         .....  135 

XII.  Criticism       .....  169 
9 


Life  and  To-Morrow 


XIII.  Country  Life 

XIV.  Society 
XV.  Politics  . 

XVI.  England 

XVII.  India 

XVIII.  Varia  . 

XIX.  Sorrow 

XX.  Death  . 

XXI.  Eeligion  . 
Index  . 


10 


LOVE 


Love  is  so  mysterious — so  wonderful  ...  it  is  the  music  of  the  world. 
It  is  a  pity  that  it  goes  so  often  out  of  tune. 


LOVE 


He  who  seeks  love  must  have  himself 

the  quality 
To  comprehend  its  essence. 

The  great  thing  is  to  love — not  to  be 
loved.  Love  is  for  both  worlds.  Perfect 
happiness   is   for  the   other  only. 

This  ache  to  be  amused,  this  longing  to 
hear  music  in  the  air,  to  see  beauty  on  all 
sides,  to  find  life  one  ever-new,  yet  ever- 
abiding  pleasure,  these  are  the  fierce,  never 
gratified  desires  of  those  who  love  only  them- 
selves. But  to  him  who  loves  others — even 
one  other — the  commonest  things  seem  rare, 
the  blackest  shadows  have  a  radiance  inde- 
scribable, and  the  harshest  notes  are  heavenly 
melodies :  disappointments,  bitterness  and  deso- 
lation have  no  part  in  his  existence.  .  .  .  But 
these  exalted  moods  are  brief — terribly  brief, 
and  they  show  us  just  enough  of  our  lost 
divinity  to  make  us  ever  more  wretched  as 
mere  mortals  and  children  of  Adam.    It  is 

13 


Life  and  To-morrow 


the  day  after,  the  days  after,  the  weeks, 
months,  years  after  when  we  can  only  re- 
member that  once  we  were  happy  for  half 
an  hour. 

Human  love  is  not  a  single  and  simple 
impulse,  but  an  emotional  force  of  innumer- 
able complications :  there  are  a  number  of 
causes  which  go  to  produce  that  restless- 
ness of  temperament  which  demonstrates  in 
brief  caprices,  in  attachments  without  faith,  in 
affections  without  endurance.  It  may  be  nature 
working  in  disguise ;  imagination,  in  some 
cases,  makes  the  disguise  more  important  and 
more  powerful  than  the  primitive  instinct, 
and  it  often  happens  that  the  pursuit  and 
study  of  individuals  is  more  pleasing  than  the 
concentration  enforced  by  the  despotism  of  a 
great  passion. 

The  young  of  both  sexes  often  take  the 
still  happiness  of  being  loved  for  love  itself. 

All  lovers  are  instinctive  comedians :  their 
words,  their  actions,  whether  on  the  heroic- 
tragic  or  the  idyllic-pathetic  scale  are  always 
mere  improvisations,  preludes,  symbols,  or,  what 
is  called  in  music,  a  cadenza  in  the  great  con- 
certo, the  passages  a  piacere,  interrupting  the 
solemn  air. 

14 


Love 


The  passion  of  love  has  a  danger  for 
very  sensitive,  reserved  and  concentrated  minds 
unknown  to  creatures  of  more  volatile,  expan- 
sive, and  unreflecting  disposition. 

It  may  be  a  fact  that  love,  in  every 
imaginative  mind,  approaches  madness  :  on 
the  other  hand,  the  least  imaginative  are 
often  not  merely  attracted  but  carried  away, 
without  any  sort  of  consent,  by  some  over- 
mastering human  magnetism.  To  love  well  is 
a  quality  in  temperament,  just  as  to  preach 
well,  or  to  conduct  a  siege  well,  or  to  tend 
the  sick  well,  or,  in  fact,  to  do  anything  well, 
is  a  special  distinction,  a  ruling  motive  in  the 
great  pursuit  of  human  felicity — a  pursuit 
which  is  the  inalienable  right  of  all  human 
creatures,  whether  fixed  mistakenly  in  this 
world,  or  wisely  in  the  next. 

When  you  once  talk  of  your  rights  and 
your  wrongs  in  love,  all  love  is  gone  or 
going. 

True  love  must  rest  on  a  perfect  under- 
standing :  at  the  first  lifting  of  the  eyes  in 
wonder  there  is  a  jar  which  by  and  by  must 
make  the  whole  emotion  restless. 

Love,  in  some  natures,  seems  to  turn  the 
blood  of  life  to  tears  and  fire. 

15 


Life  and  To-morrow 


Life  and  Love  cut  the  earth  from  their 
feet  till  they  stood  in  that  little  circle  where 
there  is  only  space  for  a  man  and  a  woman 
and  truth. 

Do  YOU  THINK  that  love  is  a  plaything? 
a  mood  for  a  dull  afternoon?  Is  it  nothing 
to  stake  your  life  on  another's,  to  be  faithful 
when  they  are  faithless,  strong  when  they 
are  weak  ?    Is  it  so  little  to  love  like  this  ? 

When  love  and  wisdom  fight  there  is 
always  an  open  grave  between  them,  and  the 
vanquished  is  buried,  under  light  leaves,  alive. 
Both  are  immortal :  both  are  invulnerable : 
there  never  is,  there  never  can  be,  a  victory, 
but  one  will  sometimes  grow  tired  and  feign 
a  surrender. 

To  LOVE  is  to  know  the  sacrifices  which 
eternity  exacts  from  life. 

Self-doubt  has  no  part  in  passion.  Of  the 
many  miseries  it  may  bring,  this,  perhaps  the 
worst  of  human  woes,  can  never  be  in  its  train. 
Men  in  love — and  women  also — may  distrust  all 
things  and  all  creatures,  but  their  own  emotion, 
like  the  storm,  proves  the  reality  of  its  force  by 
the  mischief  it  wreaks. 

There  is  a  tone  of  the  voice,  an  unuttered 
16 


Love 

and  unutterable  tenderness  in  the  accent  of  true 
love,  which  no  art  can  simulate  and  no  dis- 
cretion   disguise.     There   is  a  glance  which, 
even  under  the  ice  of  an  assumed  indiffer- 
ence, or  through  the  fiery  tempest  of  quick 
anger,   stdl  wears    the    star   of  spring-time. 
There  is  a  touch  which  is  never  so  swift,  so 
rough,  so  timid,  or  so  unconsidered  but  it  mani- 
fests  devotion.    False  affection   may  capture 
our  vanity  but  it  never  deceives  our^nst^nc" 
we  may  wish  to  be  cared  for,  and,  in  the 
weakness  of  that   strong   desire,   accept  the 
protestation  which  our  happiness  or  our  self- 
esteem  would  believe  in,  but  whoever  took 

ZreinfTu  ^^^'^"^^d'  «r  base' 

love  tor  other  than  it  was? 

^  Afpectiok  either  grows  or  dies-unchange- 
able sentiments  are  for  feeble  natures  only. 

Not  all  are  blind  that  feel  the  scourge 
of  love. 

Eyes  washed  by  grief  lose  beauty,  but 
dust  also. 

JdZ'^l'^'"''  ™  "^^^  self-indulgent  lives 
and  loved  many  times,  in  many  ways  think 

Th^:  r^fi-  *^~ee  all  huLn  liecW 
They  leave  it  gladly-perhaps,  because  love 
long  ago,  left  them.  But  to  strong,  pure 
hearts-hearts  neither  Jaded,  nor  embittered! 


17 


Life  and  To-morrow 

nor  made  cheap  by  constant  exchanges — love 
always  seems  the  most  precious  of  life's 
gifts — the  one  gift,  too,  which  we  may 
have  on  earth  and  in  Heaven,  also.  Those 
who  be-little  it,  have  first  be-fouled  it. 

There  is  something  in  beauty — just  as 
there  is  something  in  youth — which  one 
fears  to  disturb,  lest  a  change  should  alter, 
or  harm,  in  the  faintest  degree,  the  suffi- 
cient loveliness,  the  unconscious  charm.  Is 
it  not  for  this  cause  that  many  dependent 
natures  find  classic  perfection  cold,  superb 
scenery  unsympathetic,  and  the  spectacle  of 
careless  happiness  embittering?  Others,  of 
imaginative  temperament,  prefer  that  their 
idols  should  remain  impassive,  and,  granted 
the  inspiration  arising  from  a  fair  appear- 
ance, ask  no  more,  but  find  their  delight  in 
bestowing,  from  the  riches  of  their  own 
gratitude,  adorable  attributes  and  endless 
worship. 

That  moment  of  humility  which  is  the  first 
and  last  in  all  really  great  passions. 

To  KNOW  a  truth  in  one  s  soul  is  by  no 
means  the  same  thing  as  being  able  to  con- 
fess it  in  plain  speech :  great  passions  and 
beliefs  live,  no  doubt,  from  the  moment  of 

18 


Love 


their  first  conception  in  the  mind,  but  the 
life  is  a  seed-life — they  have  to  grow  into 
vigour  secretly,  till  at  last  the  unutterable 
and  indefinable  sentiment  deepens  into  the 
dominating  and  acknowledged  influence  of  a 
life.  Love  is  in  its  most  exquisite  phase  per- 
haps when  it  is  stealing  force  from  every 
thought,  gaining  mastership,  here  a  little  and 
there  a  little,  from  every  word  and  look  and 
action— when  it  is  still  to  be  argued  with, 
still  to  be  doubted,  put  down  and  wisely 
controlled. 

No  ONE  can  study  Hegel  and  remain  un- 
altered by  that  discipline,  or  see  his  fellow 
creatures  quite  as  he  saw  them  before.  .  . 
The  intoxication,  the  folly  of  all  .  .  .  love,  all 
happiness,  all  dreaming,  lies  in  the  no^-knowing, 
in  the  mistaking  them,  in  the  spontaneous 
rushing-forth  to  them  as  to  the  ultimate  goal, 
and  the  extreme  climax  of  all  things.  "This," 
you  must  say,  with  the  moth,  is  the  final, 
the  undying  star  of  stars."  "  This,"  you  must 
say  with  Orpheus,  "is  the  last  note,  this  is 
the  supreme  gift." 

There  is  one  form  of  love  which  springs  so 
directly  from  the  very  spring  of  life  that  the 
most  egoistic  man  will  feel  abashed  when  it  is 
offered  him,  and  the  lightest  woman  is  afraid 
to  recognise  it,  for  it  goes  deeper  than  any 

19 


Life  and  To-morrow 


appetite,  and  it  can  soar  higher  than  any 
flight  of  celestial  philosophy. 

The  self-mastered  dread  the  tyranny  of  a 
dominant  affection,  and  stubborn  men,  who 
yield  lightly  enough  to  their  fancies  and 
the  caprices  of  chance,  suspect,  and  subdue, 
and  try  to  ignore  their  strongest  feelings. 

There  are  two  ways  of  loving — one  is 
joyous,  active,  sane,  without  questionings  and 
without  bitterness— the  young  and  beautiful 
love  which  makes  life  charming  and  is  its 
recompense.  The  other  sardonic,  agitated,  com- 
plaining, more  full  of  tears  than  laughter, 
makes  its  victims  idle,  cowardly,  cruel,  and 
capricious. 

There  is  one  glory  of  the  friend,  and 
another  glory  of  the  possible  lover. 

They  say  that  love  is  the  answer  to  life. 
That  isn't  true — while  you  love,  at  any  rate. 
Afterwards— perhaps.  Afterwards,  when  it  is 
all  over. 

Do  YOU  realise  what  the  word  love  means  ? 
It  cannot  be  said  at  all.  It  is  either  a  call  or 
a  curse— inexorable,  unanswerable  either  way. 

One  does  not  fall  in  love  by  trying,  nor, 
for  that  matter,  by  trying,  prevent  it. 

20 


Love 


Love  ....  the  obliteration  of  self  in 
passion's  intense  delight. 

Calm  spectators  of  mortal  folly  who  have 
been  satisfactorily  married  for  twenty  years 
and  more,  who  have  sons  to  provide  for  and 
daughters  to  establish,  cherish  a  disdain  of 
love-stories  and  boast  that  they  have  no 
patience  with  morbidity.  Love— which  put 
them  into  being  and  keeps  the  earth  in 
existence— seems  to  all  such  a  silly  malady 
peculiar  to  the  sentimental  in  early  youth. 
So  they  put  the  First  Cause— in  one  of  its 
many  manifestations  —  in  the  waste-paper 
basket,  asking  each  other  what  will  become 
of  Charles,  if  he  cannot  find  a  rich  wife,  and 
poor  Alice,  if  she  cannot  entrap  a  suitable 
husband.  But  there  are  others  who  look 
on  life  with  some  hope  of  understanding 
it  truly,  in  part,  at  any  rate,  and  these 
know,  perhaps  by  experience,  perhaps  by 
sympathy,  that  whereas  bodily  disturbances 
may  pass  away  leaving  little  or  no  effect 
upon  the  general  health,  all  mental  tumults 
are  perpetual  in  their  consequences  :  they 
never  die  out  entirely,  and  they  live,  some- 
times with  appaUing  energy,  sometimes  with 
gnawing  listlessness,  to  the  end  of  an  existence. 

When  two  beings  love  each  other  their 
emotions  are  in   such  true  accord  that  the 

21 


Life  and  To-morrow 


normal,  if  unconscious,  struggle  for  supremacy 
which  continues  in  all  mere  friendships  does 
not  exist.  Delays,  misunderstandings,  and  re- 
proofs between  lovers  arise  from  some  fault, 
some  deficit,  some  real  cause  for  doubt  in  the 
actual  affection  of  one  or  the  other.  But  as 
soon  as  a  devotion  is  recognised  as  absolute, 
all  smaller  thoughts,  all  common  human  fears 
vanish,  and  the  heart  for  the  first  time  shows 
its  original  simplicity. 

Love  is  a  state  of  giving — and  unconscious 
giving. 

There  are  women  who  will  give  love  for 
love.  There  are  women,  who,  seeing  that  they 
may  save  a  soul  by  loving  it,  do  love  it  for 
that  reason. 

When  will  great — and  other — ladies  learn 
that  audacity  in  love  is  determined  not  by  a 
man's  deserts  but  by  his  desires?  Diffidence 
springs  less  from  humility  than  indecision. 

When  women  love  exceedingly,  they  do  not 
recognise  it  as  a  temptation.  They  think  it 
the  supreme  blessing  of  their  lives.  When  they 
renounce  it,  they  do  so  for  the  man's  sake — 
not  for  their  own.  This  is  the  history  of 
all  women  who  have  loved  with  any  depth. 
It  is,  perhaps,  the  one  sure  test  of  their 
earnestness. 

22 


Love 


All  women  wish  to  see  affection  perpetually 
burning — a  straight  and  brilliant  flame  ;  when 
it  flickers,  they  suffer  what  must  surely  be  the 
sharpest  pang  in  Purgatory. 

A  WOMAN  ...  is  like  your  shadow:  run 
away  from  her  and  she  follows  you :  run  after 
her  and  she  flies  from  you.  That  is  an  old 
saying.  It  is  true  so  long  as  she  does  not 
love  the  man.  And  when  she  loves  the  man — 
well — then  she  ceases  to  be  a  shadow.  She 
becomes  a  living  thing. 

Woman  will  swear  much  to  her  beloved, 
but  all  such  vows  are  few  and  feeble  in  com- 
parison with  those  promised  fervently  to  her 
own  heart. 

The  youngest  girl  will  always  feel  wiser 
than  any  lover  where  matters  of  the  heart 
are  concerned.  Is  it  not  for  her  to  explain  and 
atone  for  the  sorrows  of  existence  ? 

Columbine  in  tulle  and  garlands  is  not  well 
advised  to  dance  on  the  war-horse's  back.  For 
her,  the  circus-steed  schooled  to  the  business  : 
he  can  feign  the  broken  heart,  the  death-blow, 
and,  rising  gingerly,  canter  off  to  his  stall  in 
perfect  time  to  the  darling  valse  from  San  Toy. 
Columbine,  the  while,  can  balance  herself  on  one 
rare  toe,  always  touching  his  especially-prepared 

23 


Life  and  To-morrow 


saddle.  But  a  war-horse  is  less  courtly.  He 
will  have  no  pirouetting  on  his  spinal  column. 
Let  her  be  wise  in  time,  therefore, 

A  WOMAN  NEVER  considers  love  and  passion 
as  an  abstract.  It  is  associated  always  in  her 
imagination  with  the  man  or  with  the  men 
she  has  loved  :  with  the  man  or  with  the  men 
who  have  loved  her.  Love  is  the  person  and 
ways  of  her  lover :  and  the  subject — its 
significance,  its  philosophy— depends  wholly 
on  the  quality  of  her  own  affection  and  on 
her  experience  of  men  in  the  character  of 
wooers. 

Women  love  more  wildly  and  intensely  than 
men,  because  they  lead  purer  lives  and  are  more 
ignorant  of  those  crude  physical  laws  the  half- 
knowledge  of  which  vitiates  so  much  modern 
psychology.  If  men  lived,  as  a  rule,  as  most 
women  live,  they  too  would  place  love  first 
in  their  existence.  Passion,  like  the  sun-ray 
which  consumes  a  flower  and  merely  stimulates 
a  weed,  burns  fiercely  in  the  innocent,  although 
it  affords  the  experienced  an  occasion  only  for 
amused  self-introspection.  This  is  why  that 
April  unconscious  poetry  of  life,  known  as  first 
love,  is  touched  with  an  irresistible  charm  which 
will  sweetly  haunt  memories  the  least  accessible 
to  dreams  and  natures  the  most  stubborn  before 
beauty. 

24 


Love 

The  precocious  intelligence,  the  occasional 
note  of  sarcasm,  the  passionate  desire  for  happi- 
ness are  symptoms  all  too  plain  of  that  wasting 
fever  of  the  heart  which,  in  some  cases,  is  the 
result  of  meeting  sorrow,  and  in  others,  of  meet- 
ing love,  too  early  in  life.  To  every  pure  and 
innocent  young  girl,  love  is  a  condition  of  the 
mind,  and  not  a  strain  on  the  senses.  The  senses, 
once  roused,  may  be  controlled,  killed  or  indulged 
according  to  the  conscience  or  the^strength  of  the 
individual.  But  when  the  senses  still  sleep,  and 
the  spirit  only  is  active,  it  is  indeed  difficult  to 
impose  a  limit  on  tender  interest,  or  to  define 
wherein  excess  of  charity  consists.  Many  women 
— till  the  end  of  their  lives,  and  no  short  lives 
either — keep  their  affections  so  sacred  from  the 
taint  of  selfish  emotions,  and  so  closely  allied 
with  the  love  of  God  that  it  would  seem  an  act 
of  sacrilege  to  analyse  a  devotion  on  which  even 
angels  might  look  with  humility  and  learn  a 
lesson.  To  pretend,  however,  that  no  jealous 
thought — no  angry  reproach  would,  under  any 
provocation,  enter  into  a  sentiment  of  this  kind, 
would  deprive  it  of  attributes  certainly  as  much 
divine  as  human.  Jealousy  may  be  noble — 
although  it  is  often  mean.  Anger  may  be  just 
— although  it  is  frequently  cruel.  But  this  is 
the  case  with  every  power  of  the  soul. 

The  maternal  qualities  of  forgiveness  and 
tenderness  are  inseparable  from  a  woman's 

25 


Life  and  To-morrow 

affection.  ...  To  understand  richly  is  not  a 
matter  of  wisdom  or  amiableness :  it  is  the 
intuition  of  love,  and  it  comes  neither  by  expe- 
rience nor  merit.  The  least  meritorious  and  the 
most  foolish  will  alike  display,  under  the  in- 
fluence of  a  true  attachment,  an  almost  divine 
knowledge  of  at  least  one  fellow-creature's  soul. 
But  it  should  never  be  forgotten  that  knowledge, 
as  all  other  vital  things,  is  according  to  sex  ;  and 
while  a  woman's  sympathy  will  show  itself  as  an 
atmosphere  charged  with  emotion,  a  man's  sym- 
pathy is  often  embarrassed  and  always  uncon- 
sciously judicial.  As  he  himself  is  regarded  by 
other  men,  he  judges  men  and  women — dis- 
trusting any  partiality,  even  while  he  yields  to  it, 
in  the  case  of  the  latter. 

No  TRAINING— no  matter  how  stupid,  ener- 
vating, false,  or  hypocritical,  can  destroy  the 
simplicity  of  a  genuine  passion.  .  .  .  Greek  poets 
understood  the  eternal  feminine  nature  to  its 
depths.  The  weakest  of  creatures— when  she 
really  loves— is  proud  :  she  offers  no  excuses, 
feels  no  need  of  them,  and  will  never  call 
herself  deceived.    But  she  must  really  love. 

"Take  me,  0  stranger,  for  thine  hand-maiden, 
Or  wife,  or  slave," 

says  Andromeda  to  her  deliverer.  If  one  can 
imagine  him  shaking  his  head,  or,  after  a  short 
idyll,  seeking  out  other  captives  of  a  like  grati- 

26 


Love 


tude,  we  cannot  imagine  Andromeda  pursuing 
him  with  threats.  Calypso  wove  the  sails  for 
Odysseus's  homeward  voyage.  The  gods  had 
ordered  a  farewell,  but  they  did  not  command 
such  magnanimity. 

A  WOMAN  HAPPILY  in  love  is  at  her  best. 
Every  outward  charm  has  an  added  glory,  and 
every  potentiality  of  her  soul,  heart,  conscience, 
and  intellect  is  aroused.  The  plainest  so  influ- 
enced will  appear  almost  beautiful,  the  dullest 
gain  a  kind  of  wit,  the  coldest  can  be  kind. 
They  are  transfigured,  glorified,  inspired  beings. 
But  Nature,  ironically  bountiful  to  the  suffering 
sex,  metes  out  her  rough  justice — half  in  jest 
— to  the  splendid  one.  Men  in  love  labour  at 
once  under  every  disadvantage.  Their  judg- 
ment is  dethroned  :  their  strength  mocks  them  : 
their  associates  complain  of  their  wandering 
tempers :  they  get  haggard  and  feel  hunted : 
they  pursue  their  Fairs  and  are  pursued  them- 
selves by  all  the  devils.  A  hungry  madness 
absorbs  their  energies  :  they  are  capable  of  any 
crazy  deed.  The  fit  does  not  last,  but  while  it 
lasts  the  dangers  are  mortal.  This  is  why  men 
are  notoriously  silent  in  company  on  the  subject 
of  real  love.  They  fear  it,  resent  it,  will  join 
any  conspiracy  to  keep  it  away  from  their 
friends,  sons,  or  associates,  and  the  whole  system 
of  modern  education  makes  for  the  cultivation 
of  vices  instead  of  passions ;   if  possible,  the 

27 


Life  and  To-morrow 

substitution  of  an  exotic  brutality,  calculating, 
forced,  and  over-stimulated,  for  the  natural 
feelings  of  mankind.  Some,  fearing  this  last, 
advocate  a  maudlin  style  of  sentimental  morals 
— altogether  repellent  to  a  healthy  mind  and 
scarcely  convincing  to  the  melancholic.  Others, 
vigorous  enough  but  too  impatient  of  the  heart, 
found  their  teaching  upon  science,  and  bid 
romantic  youth  go  study  the  mating  of  the 
nobler  beasts  and  birds.  A  brief,  sane,  obvious 
courtship :  some  gentle  roaring  or  a  brightness 
in  the  plumage  :  then  the  struggle  for  existence, 
and  the  continuation  of  the  species. 

A  woman's  mission  is  to  play  the  fool,  and 
that  is  why  she  can  only  lead  a  man  so  long 
as  she  does  not  love  him.  On  the  instant  she 
loves,  she  must  be  honest  or  die  :  she  loses  all 
discretion  :  she  quarrels  when  she  should  cajole, 
smiles  when  she  should  frown,  utters  ugly  truth 
when  she  should  tell  pretty  lies  :  she  cannot 
flatter,  she  cannot  pretend — in  fact,  she  can  do 
nothing  but  love — and  that  beyond  sense. 

Some  women  have  .  .  .  that  capacity  for 
passionate  attachment  which  usually  humiliates 
its  object  because  there  is  nothing  in  the  nature 
of  man  to  support  such  prodigal  devotion,  or 
in  his  promises  to  warrant  such  consummate 
trust. 

28 


Love 


Why  dost  thou 
Love  me?   If  I  could  give  thee  reasons  .  .  . 
I   might,   by  speaking    them,   perceive  their 
frailty. 

There  is  some  cure  whilst  one  can  pick  and 
argue. 

The  worst  I  know :  that  is  the  worst  of  all ! 
If,  by  discovering  some  mote  or  blemish. 
Which,   to   my  locked,   enchanted   sight  had 
passed 

For  beauties  in  the  earliest,  mad,  glad  fever, 
Then  might  I  say  it  was  the  erring  shadow 
Of  my  own  fantasy  that  I  had  loved, 
No  man  at  all,  no  soul,  no  great  ambition. 
But,  'tis  not  so.    I  see  the  one  thou  seest. 
The  glance— the  kingly  strut— the  glory  to  God, 
All  this  I  see.    Yet,  there  is  something  more 
That  hath  escaped  your  jealousy,  but  not 
My  heart.    O,  there's  a  winged  spirit  in  him. 
That,  when  our  eyes  may  meet,  looks  o'er  the 
brink 

Of  his  humanity.    This  calls  to  mine, 
And,  as  the  sun  draws  vapour,  so  I  rise 
To  that  irresistible  force. 

Never  was  talk  so  bitter-sweet  of  souls 
But  soon  the  creature  fell  with  bodily  hurt 
Into  a  deep  abyss. 

Men  may  still  find  oblivion  in  a  kiss, 
but  women  of  fashion  are  always — or  nearly 

29 


Life  and  To-morrow 


always — too  self-conscious  to  forget  the  arti- 
ficialities of  life  in  the  verities  of  passion.  .  .  . 
Only  the  strong-minded  can  know  the  extreme 
pleasure  of  self -surrender. 

Any  woman  can  give  up  the  world  for  a 
man — that  is  easy  enough.  When  it  comes  to 
giving  him  up,  for  his  own  sake,  it  is  another 
matter.  If  a  woman  can  do  that,  it  should 
atone  for  many  sins. 

All  affection  seems  to  have  been  laughed 
out  of  the  world;  when  it  is  not  ridiculous, 
it  is  thought  hysterical.  ...  It  remains  and 
always  must  remain,  the  greatest — the  only 
perfect  gift — that  God  has  given  us. 

Perhaps  it  is  as  well  for  those  .  .  .  who 
are  proud  and  self-reliant  that  .  .  .  simple, 
undignified  and  affectionate  creatures  are  to 
be  found  here  and  there.  They  may  speak  for 
us  on  Judgment  Day,  which  will  be  the  longest, 
darkest,  and  coldest,  this  world  has  seen. 

Faust  called  in  all  hell  in  order  to  ruin  one 
simple  girl,  and  she,  by  her  prayers  to  Heaven, 
saved  his  soul !  Love  will  get  the  better  of  the 
devil  every  time ;  love  is  the  supreme  power ; 
love  ...  is  simply  tremendous ;  love  is  the  one 
thing  that  always  wins,  and  must  win ;  love 
has  wings  to  lift  one  out  of  every  trouble, 
every  disaster. 

30 


Love 


Men  always  say,  "I  love  you— give  me  your 
world."  And  then  the  woman  gives  her  world 
— and  then — he  puts  it  out  of  her  reach  for 
ever. 

The  world  is  better  lost  for  love  than  love 
for  the  world. 

A  TACTFUL  LOVER  is  not  born  but  made  by 
long  training  in  the  arts  of  courtship. 

What  a  cruel  world  it  would  be  if  women 
loved  men  in  no  better  way  than  so  many  men 
love  women. 

It  is  only  a  very  unselfish  man  who  cares 
to  be  loved  ;  the  majority  prefer  to  love — it 
lays  them  under  fewer  obligations. 

Is  THERE  A  MAN  would  feign 
He  had  loved  one — one  only  all  his  days? 
That  fool  I  have  not  met ! 

It  is  VERY  EASY  to  attach  too  much  import- 
ance to  love  affairs.  In  every  vow  we  make 
there  is  a  secret  note  of  perjury,  and  we  can  be 
absolutely  certain  of  our  hopes  only — because 
we  live  more  earnestly  in  the  life  we  imagine 
than  in  the  life  we  lead.  We  always  know 
that  the  life  we  have  must  change,  whereas 
we  believe  our  hopes  will  never  change.  .  . 

31 


Life  and  To-morrow 


But  the  hopes  change  too.  Obstinacy  or  vanity 
often  force  us  to  pretend  that  they  remain.  .  .  . 
Is  not  constancy  the  main  cause  of  our  dismay 
when  we  find  our  soul  undergoing  some  subtle, 
irresistible,  even  unwelcome  development  ?  "  If 
man  were  constant,  he  were  perfect,"  is  a  false 
saying.  If  man  were  strictly  constant,  he 
would  be  dead. 

If  all  lovers  were  happy,  every  couple 
would  be  wishing  the  rest  out  of  the  way  !  Two 
happy  people  always  want  the  whole  earth  to 
themselves.  On  the  other  hand,  three  unhappy 
people  can  keep  the  whole  of  London  thoroughly 
entertained ! 

Men  are  weak  with  the  women  they  love, 
because  they  can  always  depend  on  the  one  who 
loves  them. 

Men  .  .  .  AFTER  CONSIDERING  a  woman  for 
months,  invariably  decide  that  they  loved  her 
at  first  sight. 

Treachery  kills  a  woman's  love,  while 
jealousy  will  keep  it  burning.  When  men  lie 
to  women  who  love  them,  they  are  fools. 

When  a  man  loves  a  woman  she  can  be  as 
cross,  or  stupid,  or  unkind  as  she  pleases.  .  .  . 
And  when  he  doesn't  love  her  ...  if  she  were 

32 


Love 

an  angel  from  heaven  she  couldn't  keep  him 
for  five  minutes. 

Never  trust  a  man's  opinion  on  any  subject 
until  he  has  been  in  love.  Love  is  the  only 
thing  which  can  make  life  as  clear  as  noon-day. 

One  true  love  will  bestow  a  deeper  insight 
into  the  world  than  years  of  gallantry. 

.  .  .  Where's  the  harm,  though  you  are  sick 
with  love. 

The  state  is  unfamiliar  to  your  knowledge. 
How  could  you  guess  that  when  you  search  the 
clouds, 

Or  sigh  because  a  melancholy  note 

Drives  you  to  think  the  passingness  of  life 

Is  all  too  swift— that  this  is  love— not  wisdom? 

Love  comes  to  man  through  his  senses— to 
woman  through  her  imagination.  Taking  the 
subject  on  broad  lines— women  love  men  for 
their  virtue ;  while  men,  very  often,  love  women 
for  the  absence  of  it.  ...  A  woman  would,  no 
doubt,  need  a  great  deal  of  imagination  to  love 
a  man  for  his  virtue ! 

A  MAN  MAY  LOVE  Various  women  for  various 
reasons  at  all  times  of  his  life,  but  he  can  only 
love  once,  one  way.  Each  experience  is  totally 
different,  and  absolutely  new ;  only  one,  how- 
ever, can  be  quite  satisfactory.  .  .  .   This  is  true 


33 


c 


Life  and  To-morrow 

o£  women  also.  And  it  all  comes  to  this  :  love  is 
precisely  the  same  kind  of  emotion  as  religion. 
If  we  would  only  be  as  patient  with  human 
nature  as  God  is  !  Some  days  we  are  more 
devout  than  others  :  the  saint  who  appeals  to 
you  in  one  mood  may  repel  you  in  another :  this 
month  we  devote  ourselves  to  Our  Lady,  and 
another  to  St.  Paul ;  some  people,  too,  mistake 
incense  for  dogma,  and  love  of  music  for  love 
of  virtue.  But  the  folly  and  sensuousness  of 
creatures  .  .  .  cannot  touch  the  great  unalter- 
able truths. 

It  is  an  obvious  truism  that  love  in  all  human 
relations  is,  in  the  very  nature  of  things,  selfish ; 
those  who  love  unselfishly  only  do  so  by  living 
in  a  state  of  constant  warfare  with  their  meaner 
instincts.  The  natural  desire  is  to  absorb  every 
thought  and  moment  of  the  loved  being;  to 
begrudge  every  interest,  and  dislike  all  things 
and  anything  which  would  seem  to  distract  the 
You  from  incessant  dependence  on  the  Me.  This 
is  the  undisciplined,  raw  desire;  many  conquer  it 
.  .  .  more  do  not.  ...  It  is  only  one  more  para- 
dox from  that  nest  of  paradoxes— the  human 
heart — that  only  love  is  strong  enough  to 
subdue  love. 

You  MAY  CUT  OFF  your  hand  or  pluck  out 
your  eye :  but  love  is  the  very  soul  of  you — you 
cannot  touch  it. 

34 


Love 


Love  that  is  secret  hath  remorse  for  friend. 

When  a  woman  is  the  first  and  chief  consid'lra- 
tion  in  a  man's  life,  or  when  a  man  becomes  the 
first  and  chief  consideration  in  a  woman's  life, 
the  end,  in  each  case,  will  be  always  cruel  and 
foolish — always  an  insupportable  disappointment 
to  one,  or  to  the  other,  or  to  both. 

No  POWERFUL  BEING  ever  yet  either  stood  by 
the  glory  or  fell  by  the  disasters  of  a  love  affair 
alone,  uncomplicated  by  other  issues.  It  does  its 
work  :  it  must  touch,  in  many  ways,  the  whole 
character ;  but  it  is,  in  the  essence  of  things,  a 
cause — not  an  effect. 

As  A  LOVER— an  idealist:  that  is  to  say  .  .  . 
calm  senses  and  a  passionate  heart.  Any  con- 
stitution of  the  kind,  whether  in  a  man  or  a 
woman,  is  foredoomed  to  acute  suffering,  per- 
petual misunderstanding,  and  a  good  deal  of 
enmity  from  the  greater  number  of  persons  who 
live  by  the  inverse  ratio— a  stagnant  heart  and 
undisciplined  senses. 

Absence,  distance,  and  the  hopelessness  of  it 
all,  had  only  lifted  .  .  .  this  romantic  passion 
.  .  .  higher  than  common  things,  till,  like  a  spirit 
set  free  from  the  cage  of  the  world,  it  flew  on 
unwearied  pinions  through  endless  sky,  and, 
because  unwearied,  seeking  no  rest — no  final 

35 


Life  and  To-morrow 


halting-place.  On,  on  for  ever  :  more  than 
content  with  its  gift  of  perpetual  energy — its 
perpetual  release  from  the  sorrow  which  makes 
happiness  look  too  tempting,  and  from  the 
happiness,  which,  once  tasted,  gives  every 
sorrow  the  flavour  of  a  death  potion. 

Some  men  take  the  Church;  some  Poverty 
for  their  bride  .  .  .  some  choose  ideal  Love  in 
the  person  of  a  living  woman — just  as  Dante 
long  ago  chose  Beatrice.  Such  a  form  of  mental 
devotion  is  far  more  common  than  the  married 
mortal  passion  that  seems  more  general ;  but  one 
belongs  to  the  world  invisible,  the  language  of 
silence,  the  hidden  being  of  a  man  ;  the  other  is 
evident,  talkative,  and,  like  the  saint  who  prays 
in  the  market-place,  it  has  its  reward  in  the 
fact  that  it  is  a  public  profession — a  privilege 
and  a  bliss  known  and  observed  by  all  who 
pass  by. 

But  if  we  had  loved  each  other."  Surely 
the  bitterest  woe  of  human  destinies  is  in  that 
cry.  It  is  not  a  reproach — for  who  can  love  at 
will  ?  Still,  that  is  the  foregone  alternative  in 
so  many  lives  ;  either  the  man  or  the  woman  has 
to  feel  that  the  one  thing  which  can  make  all  the 
difference  is  lacking.  Generally,  in  self-mockery, 
they  drive  the  eternal  bad  bargain ;  finding  the 
hope  too  far  away,  they  take  the  disappointment, 
which  is  always  so  terribly  near. 

36 


Love 


Romance  seems  to  have  died  out  in  England 
.  .  .  there  is  no  great  love  poetry  read  or 
written  now,  and  the  men  who  imitated  Tenny- 
son, George  Meredith,  Swinburne  and  Browning 
belong  already  to  the  old  school.  Perhaps  women 
have  lost  much  of  their  mystery,  and  so  they 
have  ceased  to  be  inspiring.  People  are  anxious 
enough  to  love,  I  believe.  But  to  love  well  is  a 
career  in  itself  ;  and  the  men  who  have  the  time 
lack  the  nature,  and  those  who  might  have  the 
nature  work  for  money  till  they  have  neither 
feelings  nor  thoughts  and  they  become  machines. 


37 


II 


MEN  AND  WOMEN 

Women  never  question  silence,  they  break  it,  whereas  men  are  broken 
by  it. 


MEN  AND  WOMEN 


There  are  certain  utterances,  certain 
turns  of  thought,  which  are  so  restricted  to 
one  sex  or  the  other,  so  exclusively  feminine 
or  masculine,  as  the  case  may  be,  that  their 
entire  comprehension  by  both  sexes  is  not 
possible.  Intuition,  imagination,  sympathy 
may  help  a  great  deal;  men  and  women  will 
accept  much  from  each  other  which  they  can- 
not to  their  reasoning  satisfaction  account  for, 
and,  if  the  difference  serves  only  to  enhance, 
by  its  mystery,  the  melodiousness  of  the  eternal 
human  duet,  it  also  proves  that,  while  the 
singers  may  be  in  harmony,  they  are  never 
in  absolute  unison. 

Women,  and  men  also,  judge  of  their  lovers 
by  their  bearing  with  themselves.  They  never 
imagine  that  a  man  who  is  stern  with  one 
beauty  might  be  in  glad  bondage  to  her  rival, 
or  that  a  woman  who  is  winter  to  one  man 
might  possibly  be  summer  with  another. 


The  essential  in  conversation  of  a  teasing 
41 


Life  and  To-morrow 


kind  between  a  man  and  a  woman  is  that  both 
should  know  indisputably  that  they  are  dancing 
a  dance. 

When  one  only  o£  any  two  is  sentimental, 
intercourse  is  easy,  because  the  more  unabashed 
the  companion  the  less  restrained  are  the 
acutely  fastidious  in  thought  and  feeling.  This 
is  why  poets  have  loved  cooks,  and  cooks  have 
adored  poets. 

When  .  .  .  the  man  .  .  .  appears  at  his  worst 
.  .  .  the  talent  of  remembering  him,  with 
vehemence,  at  his  best  ...  is  the  peculiar  talent 
of  the  wife-woman — a  type  differing  from  every 
other  whether  married  or  single — for  many  of 
the  married  are  not  wife-women  by  any  means. 
In  justice  to  men,  it  should  be  eternally  borne 
in  mind  that  any  deep  knowledge  of  really 
virtuous  women  can  never  be  otherwise  than 
restricted :  for  instance,  if  a  man  marries  three 
times,  and  each  time  a  Penelope,  he  may  thus 
become  well  acquainted  with  three  patterns  of 
chastity  coupled  with  uncommon  beauty  and 
sense.  But  whereas  mistress-women  are  much 
alike  and  soon  mastered,  even  in  the  character 
of  wives,  wife- women  are  full  of  surprises,  even 
in  the  character  of  mistresses,  and  are  as  hard 
to  understand  as  the  Sphinx.  Of  the  latter 
variety,  we  have  two  famous  examples  in 
Heloise  and  La  Valliere. 

42 


Men  and  Women 


To  BE  SANE  one  must  mix  constantly  with 
both  sexes.  A  man  who  lives  almost  wholly 
among  men  soon  becomes  more  hysterical  than 
any  woman,  or  else  more  brutal  than  any  beast ; 
and  a  woman  who  spends  her  days  with  other 
women  only  soon  becomes  a  tyrant  or  an 
imbecile, 

It  is  mothers  and  sisters  who  make  half 
the  bad  husbands  you  hear  about — for  no  wife 
worth  the  name  wants  to  keep  her  man  short- 
coated  !  But  if  many  women  could  have  their 
will,  they  would  make  their  boys  and  brothers 
wear  christening  robes  and  eat  pap  till  they 
turned  fifty.  .  .  .  And  it  is  not  love  so  much 
as  wanting  to  have  their  own  way  with  them 
and  to  have  them  like  rabbits  in  a  cage.  .  .  . 
There  are  enough  real  children  in  the  world 
for  women  to  look  after  without  dilly-dallying 
about  with  grown  men. 

The  secret  of  managing  a  man  is  to  let 
him  have  his  way  in  little  things.  He  will 
change  his  plan  of  life  when  he  won  t  change 
his  boot-maker  ! 

When  a  man  gets  an  idea  into  his  head 
about  a  woman,  either  to  her  glory  or  her 
damnation,  whatever  she  may  say  or  do  only 
gives  him  one  more  reason  for  sticking  to  it. 
It  is  only  when  he  get  an  equally  strong  idea 

43 


Life  and  To-morrow 

about  some  other  subject,  or  some  other  woman, 
that  he  becomes  nicely  critical. 

When  a  man  is  at  most  pains  to  conceal 
his  admiration  for  a  woman,  he  can  be  most 
sure  that  she  appreciates  his  struggles  to  her 
finger-tips. 

Men  are  all  the  same.  They  always  think 
that  something  they  are  going  to  get  is  better 
than  what  they  have  got. 

When  a  man  loses  his  head  it  generally 
takes  him  some  time  to  find  it  again.  He  feels 
as  though  he  has  to  recognise  it  among  a  lot 
of  other  lost  heads ;  for  the  moment  he  is  not 
at  all  certain  which  is  the  right  one — his  own. 
Woman,  more  dexterous,  catches  it  on  the 
rebound. 

All  men  are  very  much  what  women  make 
them :  their  wills  may  be  iron,  but  women  do 
not  attack  them  through  their  wills.  They 
throw  spells  over  their  judgment.  Sometimes 
the  spell  works  for  good — more  often  for  evil ; 
for  women  as  a  rule  are  meaner  than  men — 
though  men  are  mean  enough,  Heaven  knows. 

As  A  RULE,  there  can  be  no  better  adviser 
for  a  man  than  a  woman  who  has  a  passionless 
affection  for  him  :  she  can  under  these  circum- 

44 


Men  and  Women 


stances  almost  succeed  in  being  impartial ;  she 
can  even  see  where  he  may  be  in  fault  ;  she  can 
bring  herself  to  face  his  shortcomings — nay, 
more,  she  can  deal  with  them. 

Men  will  forgive  any  fault  in  a  person  so 
long  as  she  can  make  a  meal  pass  pleasantly. 
They  do  not  want  wonderful  characters — they 
like  people  who  are  civil  at  dinner. 

A  SUCCESSFUL  LIBERTINE  has  never  a  sense  of 
humour.  He  must  be  melancholy,  intensely 
grave,  or  the  sex  will  never  ruin  themselves 
on  his  account. 

There  was  never  a  Samson  so  strong  but 
he  met  his  Delilah  ;  it  is  only  by  the  mercy  of 
God  that  Delilah  has  occasionally  a  conscience. 

A  man's  IDEA  of  women  depends  on  the 
women  friends  he  has  had. 

Men  who  look  before  they  leap — leap,  never- 
theless !  The  choice  of  a  career  and  the  choice 
of  a  wife — the  most  important  steps  in  a 
man's  life — are  accidents  always.  You  may 
pride  yourself  on  thinking  both  questions  out, 
but  your  thinking  will  be  gratuitous — so  far  as 
your  fate  is  concerned. 


I  USED  TO  WONDER  why  men  wanted  money. 
45 


Life  and  To-morrow 

I  shall  never  wonder  again.  It  is  not  because 
they  are  vulgar — half  the  time  it  is  because  they 
wish  to  buy  something  beautiful.  Beauty  and 
happiness  are  so  costly.  Think  how  humiliating 
it  is  to  say  to  yourself,  "  I  love  that  woman.  If 
she  were  my  wife,  I  could  believe  in  all  the  big 
ideas  ;  I  could  lead  a  life  with  joy  in  it,  and 
take  the  sorrow  of  death,  and  believe  in  the 
world  to  come  and  the  goodness  of  God  ;  I  could 
work — and  I  would  be  faithful.  But — but — but 
— where  is  the  money  for  the  first  step — just  the 
first  step  ?  "  When  the  steady,  dull  ones  come  to 
that  point,  they  either  marry  money  or  a  useful 
drudge.  When  the  passionate  ones  come  to  it, 
they  will  not  quite  sell  their  souls,  but  they 
over-eat  and  over-drink,  and  they  try  to  forget 
what  they  really  want.  Just  when  they  think 
they  have  forgotten,  some  one  will  sing  a  song, 
or  they  will  see  a  picture,  or  there  will  be  some- 
thing in  an  early  morning  or  in  the  sky  at  night, 
or  they  will  meet  a  woman — just  the  kind  of 
woman  they  had  buried  with  their  old  poetry 
books — and  then  the  remorse  and  the  self- 
condemnation  and  the  self-disgust  begin  all 
over  again,  but  ten  hundred  thousand  times 
worse.  A  man  is  never  happy  with  the 
second  best,  or  the  third  best,  or,  indeed, 
with  anything  less  than  the  ideal  he  is  capable 
of  imagining.  So  long  as  he  can  imagine 
something  better  than  what  he  possesses 
already — so  long  as   he  can  feel  that  he  has 

46 


Men  and  Women 


missed  something  he  might  have  had  but  for 
ill  luck  or  no  chance,  he  is  bound  to  be 
miserable. 

Every  young  man  takes  it  for  granted  that 
his  fortunes  will  be,  if  they  are  not,  strange, 
just  as  every  woman  believes  that  love,  even 
if  it  has  not  come,  must  come  eventually.  Men, 
in  time,  can  lose  their  hope ;  but  women,  till 
they  perish,  wait  for  romance. 

Men  are  the  dreamers  of  the  race.  They 
feel,  therefore,  disillusions  and  awakenings  with 
a  vindictive  or  a  sombre  rage  which  is  to 
women,  materialists  always,  incomprehensible. 
This  is  why  women  are  rarely  satirists  and 
never  genuine  cynics.  Led  by  their  emotions, 
they  pamper  them,  and  never,  by  any  caprice, 
sincerely  condemn,  blame,  or  criticise  the  feelings 
on  which  they  depend  for  all  their  inspiration — 
if  for  all  their  chagrin.  A  man  will  spend 
a  lifetime  quarrelling  with  his  own  heart, 
whereas  a  woman  can  never  believe  that  her 
heart  might  be  in  the  wrong.  She  has  courage 
enough  to  defy  the  world,  but  before  her  own 
susceptibilities  she  is  a  slave,  acquiescent  and 
silent. 

Men,  I  believe,  to  be  truly  happy  must  have, 
at  least,  one  simple  heart,  which  they  can 
always  impose  upon.  This  process  they  call 
trust  and  sympathy ! 

47 


Life  and  To-morrow 


A  MAN  MUST  BE  faithless  to  something — either 
to  a  woman,  or  his  God,  or  his  firmest  belief. 

The  joy  of  living  consists,  for  a  man,  in 
being  constantly  false  to  some  ever-faithful 
woman  ! 

If  a  man  wants  to  forget  a  woman  he  should 
keep  his  gaze  off  the  sky,  and  look  out  for 
another  pair  of  eyes ! 

Men  ake  not  so  weak  as  you  think.  .  .  ,  They 
can  always  leave  anybody  or  any  place  without 
a  pang — if  they  find  another  person  or  another 
place  they  like  better.  If  they  feel  pricks  and 
scruples  it  is  merely  because  they  cannot  make 
up  their  minds  that  the  change  will  be  absolutely 
to  their  advantage. 

If  a  woman  wants  to  keep  a  man's  esteem 
for  ever,  let  her  refuse  to  run  away  with  him. 
That  is  the  one  thing  for  which  the  thankless 
ruffians  never  fail  to  show  gratitude. 

I  AM  so  SICK  of  these  women  who  think  they 
are  like  Guinevere !  I  really  prefer  those  .  .  . 
who  make  a  clean  bolt.  It  is  more  breezy, 
and  much  more  expensive — when  you  come  to 
think  of  it ! 


That's  a  mistake  girls  always  make.  They 
48 


Men  and  Women 


begin  the  heavenly.  It's  not  a  bit  o£  use  being 
heavenly  with  men.  .  .  .  You  must  take  em 
as  they  are,  or  leave  'em. 

Men  have  no  keal  confidence  in  women. 

Men  like  women  who  prattle  in  an  ex- 
perienced way  about  hearts,  and  souls,  and 
that  sort  of  thing! 

You  MAY  KNOW  a  nian  for  twenty  years,  and 
in  the  twenty-first  year  he  will  do  something 
which  will  make  your  twenty  years'  experience 
count  for  nought.  Then  you  say,  "I  should 
never  have  expected  this  from  A."  Just  as  if  A 
would  have  expected  it  himself.  Men  astonish 
themselves  far  more  than  they  astonish  their 
friends. 

Every  man  —  even  the  most  cynical — has 
one  enthusiasm;  he  is  earnest  about  some  one 
thing;  the  all-round  trifler  does  not  exist.  If 
there  is  a  skeleton — there  is  also  an  idol  in  the 
cupboard!  That  idol  may  be  ambition,  love, 
revenge,  the  turf,  the  table,  but  it  is  there. 

Men  do  not  like  their  wives  to  have  too 
clear  a  perception  of  the  ludicrous— it  is  a 
masculine  theory  that  laughter  must  be  on  the 
male  side  only.  A  man  knows  when  laughter 
is  a  spoil-sport;    he  can  postpone   it  when 

49  D 


Life  and  To-morrow 


necessary.  But  a  woman  will  laugh — if  she 
know  how — at  the  right  moment  or  the  wrong, 
usually,  too,  when  a  man  would  prefer  to  see 
her  demure. 

It  is  the  weak,  effeminate  creature  who 
wishes  to  control  women.  Men  of  character 
respect  women  of  character.  These  fellows  who 
declare  that  they  will  be  masters  in  their  own 
house  are  masters  nowhere  else. 

Men  divide  women  into  so  many  types,  and 
when  they  see  a  woman  they  put  her  down 
as  a  representative  of  one  of  these.  They  like 
to  think  that  if  she  is  type  a  she  will  do  this, 
if  type  b  that,  if  type  c  the  other,  and  so  on. 
It  is  very  absurd,  of  course,  for  no  two  women 
are  the  same  any  more  than  one  wave  is  like 
another. 

As  WOMEN  ARE  NOT  trained  and  drilled  in 
batches,  as  men  are  trained  and  drilled,  they 
always  preserve,  without  disguise,  a  certain 
individuality  and  strangeness  which  makes  each 
one  a  perpetual  source  of  pride  and  interest 
to  herself.  All  men  may  be  alike;  no  two 
women  are  the  same.  They  are  constantly 
grieved  in  their  affections ;  but  that  is  due 
rather  to  their  own  self-deception  than  to  the 
unkindness  of  the  loved.  They  do  not  accept 
a  man's  sayings  and  actions  on  their  surface 

50 


Men  and  Women 


value :  they  will  not  believe  that  he  is,  by- 
nature,  a  creature  of  cautious  statements  and 
born  with  a  disinclination  to  burden-bearing. 

Women  are  so  afraid  of  loneliness.  Exis- 
tence can  so  soon  become  for  them  dull,  barren, 
grey,  and  inane.  And  they  drift  into  .  .  .  hope- 
less, terrible  attachments ;  they  do  not  see  that 
they  were  not  made  to  give  love  but  to  accept 
it.  They  squander  their  devotion  on  a  sex 
which  requires  devotion  in  its  infancy,  or  in 
illness  only.  A  prudent  woman  will  permit 
herself  to  be  worshipped,  protected,  provided 
for;  she  keeps  a  close  guard  over  her  own 
affections. 

Women,  in  every  disappointment,  always 
look  for  some  future  change  of  circumstances 
favourable  to  their  wishes.  No  matter  how 
nominal,  shallow,  and  delusive  this  faith  may 
be,  it  sustains  them  through  the  worst  trials. 
Thus  it  is  that  when  a  woman  sacrifices  either 
her  repose  or  the  legitimate  compensations  of 
life  to  a  great  idea,  she  suffers  far  less  than 
a  man  in  similar  conditions.  The  devout  female 
sex  drive  a  good  bargain  always :  they  manage 
somehow  to  obtain  all  the  sentiment  they 
require  from  both  worlds.  Men  cannot  be 
happy  on  sentiment  alone ;  hence,  therefore, 
the  dreadful  hesitations,  self -doubts,  and  terror 
which  assail  so  frequently  the  interior  peace 

51 


Life  and  To-morrow 

of  all  men  drawn,  by  certain  qualities  of 
temperament,  toward  the  mortification  of  their 
humanity.  Laying  aside  the  proud  idea  of  the 
independence,  vigour,  and  spiritual-mindedness 
which  this  practice  is  held  to  secure,  there  is  one 
drawback  which,  with  a  view  to  that  class 
who  are  really  willing  to  endure  many  afflictions 
for  the  sake  of  any  one  definite  advantage, 
ought  not  to  be  over-looked.  The  weak,  under 
such  discipline,  become  sugary :  the  strong  grow 
hard. 

Women  of  indolent  and  selfish  nature  are 
rarely  communicative  until  they  have  exhausted 
the  joy  of  silent  imagination,  and  even  then 
they  tell  very  few  of  their  intimate  thoughts. 

Some  women  are  jealous  by  temperament, 
but  the  greater  number  are  jealous  only  when 
their  trust  is  insulted  or  their  dignity  brought 
down  to  the  humiliating  struggle  for  a  lost 
empire. 

The  supreme  difficulty  of  a  woman's  life 
is  to  find  the  man  who  desires  .  .  .  devotion, 
who  has  an  ideal,  who  wants  a  good  angel ! 
The  best  of  men  only  ask  .  ,  .  women  to  be 
for  ever  young  and  for  ever  pretty  ;  let  .  .  . 
their  consciences  go  to  the  dogs  but  keep  .  .  . 
their  freshness.  Virtue  never  yet  atoned  for 
wrinkles ! 

52 


Men  and  Women 


Women  .  .  .  are  full  of  kindness.  .  .  .  But 
they  are  better  loved  when  they  are  less  kind 
.  .  .  for  man  is  such  a  reptile  of  ingratitude 
that  he  can  only  give  love  with  cheerfulness 
where  it  is  not  wanted. 

Women  fascinate  the  hearts,  but  they  do 
not  affect  the  destinies  of  determined  men. 

The  want  of  sympathy  with  unfamiliar 
ideas  keeps  a  woman  straight,  when  mere 
moral  principles  will  fail. 

Many  women  enjoy  the  ironies  of  a  false 
position — it  gives  them  a  sense  of  cheating  the 
world  and  fate. 

The  emotional  sex  can  excite  enthusiasm, 
but  they  cannot  control  it.  The  good  ones  are 
satisfied  with  nothing  short  of  martyrdom,  and 
the  bad  ones  will  give  you  no  rest  till  you 
become  an  assassin. 

Is  NOT  THE  FAIRY  TALE  of  the  Sleeping  Beauty 
the  story  of  every  girl  who  is  intelligent  and 
well-guarded?  She  is  sent  to  sleep  lest  she 
should  think  too  much  and  too  soon.  When 
the  hour  of  her  awakening  strikes — as  it  must 
at  some  time — it  is  hoped  that  she  may  be  old 
enough  or  patient  enough  or  sly  enough  to  bear 
the  sudden  sight  of  realities.    If  she  cannot 

53 


Life  and  To-morrow 


face  them,  she  may  turn  over  and  feign  a  sleep 
till  she  dies.  If  she  be  horrified,  dismayed, 
broken-hearted,  or  condemned  to  a  desperate 
endurance  which  is  accepted,  by  others,  as 
her  destiny,  she  is  enjoined  to  remember  how 
blessed  she  was  to  have  had  such  a  long  slumber 
in  ignorance. 

In  immature  women  the  spirit  develops  but 
the  body  lags  ;  hence,  painful  and  mysterious 
contradictions  of  mood. 

You  CANNOT  ENJOY,  in  full  measure,  the 
privileges  of  both  sexes,  nor  even  the  privileges 
of  two  types  of  the  same  sex.  You  cannot  be, 
at  the  same  time,  Jonathan  and  Bathsheba,  or 
Pallas  Athene  and  Aphrodite,  or  Rahab  and 
Sarah.  The  attempt  to  mix  all  these  is  at  the 
root  of  all  the  spoken  discontent  in  thinking 
women,  and  all  the  smouldering  woe  in  women 
who  are  unable  to  think.  Ask  yourself  what 
manner  of  woman  you  are  :  realise  your  type, 
and  accept,  with  its  advantages,  its  irremediable 
disabilities. 

A  WOMAN  WHO  HAS  not  suffered  soon  becomes 
very  cruel. 

A  PIQUED  WOMAN  is  nearly  always  a  desperate 
woman;  a  piqued  woman  who  feels  that  she 
has  been  in  two  dangers — one  of  wronging  the 

54 


Men  and  Women 

innocent,  and  the  other  of  wronging  herself— 
will  nearly  always  devote  the  rest  of  her  life 
to  acts  of  atonement. 

In  every  woman,  raillery  is  either  a  cutting 
business  directed  toward  the  secret  thoughts 
of  other  people,  or  else— that  act  of  supreme 
treachery — the  betrayal  of  her  own.  The  least 
trustworthy  may  be  believed  when  she  indulges 
in  this  dangerous  exercise  of  the  wits — for, 
while  men  are  known  by  their  friends,  women 
are  known  by  their  jests. 

A  woman's  instinct  is  rarely  at  fault;  it  is 
only  when  she  attempts  to  argue  with  it  that 
she  blunders. 

Women  should  work  for  women  and  with 
them,  and  I  do  not  believe  that  women  can 
do  men's  work.  But  to  keep  sane  .  .  .  they 
must  have  men  as  well  as  women  friends. 

It  is  not  the  merely  cold  or  the  merely 
emotional  woman  who  can  influence  a  man's 
life,  but  the  woman  with  self-control,  which, 
in  its  highest  form,  is  self-abnegation. 

There  are  such  crowds  of  true  women  who 
want  to  be  divinely  kind  to  somebody  ! 

Women  are  always  on  the  defensive  even 
55 


Life  and  To-morrow 


with  the  men  they  love  best— most  of  all, 
perhaps,  with  the  men  they  love  best. 

Beauty  is  not  given  to  one  woman  in  many 
hundreds,  but  every  woman  has  at  least  some 
measure  of  individuality,  and  it  is  surely  better 
to  preserve  this  and  be  recognised  by  it,  than 
to  put  on  stereotyped  vulgarities  which  harden 
the  softest  features  and  form  the  most  repellent 
frame  possible  to  any  face.  We  all  feel  the 
attraction  of  a  poetical  appearance,  and  for- 
tunately it  depends  rather  on  the  atmosphere 
one  can  suggest  than  on  the  accident  of  a 
straight  nose,  or  a  fresh  complexion,  or  liquid 
eyes,  or  a  smiling  mouth,  or  a  gentle  brow.  In 
speaking  of  poetry  and  the  poetic,  moreover,  it 
should  be  remembered  that  there  are  many 
kinds  of  poetry :  some  of  it  is  peculiar  for  its 
vigour  and  downrightness,  its  ruggedness  and 
simplicity.  A  lady,  for  instance,  who  deter- 
mined, on  entering  a  ball-room,  to  call  up 
the  best  quotations  from  Keats,  would  be 
foredoomed,  I  think,  to  disaster. 

The  prettier  the  woman,  the  less  apt  is 
she  to  be  vain  in  the  estimate  of  her  own 
powers  over  men.  From  easy  experience,  every 
beauty  soon  learns  the  kind  of  man  to  whom 
she  can  irresistibly  appeal,  and  she  is  usually 
most  good-humoured  in  owning  her  powerless- 

56 


Men  and  Women 


ness  over  the  particular  class  of  individual  who 
will  prefer  opposite  attractions  to  her  own. 

Women  who  possess  what  Mr,  Joe  Gargery 
called  a  master  mind,"  like  to  manage  men, 
but  they  like  to  manage  other  women  still 
better :  it  is  a  greater  triumph  from  an  artistic 
point  of  view. 

No  WOMAN  HAS  ANYTHING  to  fear  except  the 
truth  :  so  long  as  the  truth  will  bear  telling, 
she  can  laugh  at  lies.  They  may  for  a  time 
work  mischief,  but  only  for  a  time. 

A  WOMAN  ALWAYS  handles  sarcasm  with  the 
point  toward  her  own  breast. 

Women  respect  a  man  whom  they  cannot 
deceive,  but  only  when  he  has  the  generosity 
to  warn  them  of  his  discernment.  It  is  fatal 
to  feign  a  behef  in  their  fooling,  to  beguile  the 
beguiler,  and  then,  after  a  period  of  mutual 
deception,  to  analyse,  with  cynical  accuracy, 
each  enchanting  falsehood,  every  distracting 
gesture. 

Women  have  boundless  faith  in  the  sober- 
ing  effect  of  commonplace.  It  is  the  remedy 
they  administer  to  disordered  passions. 

Women  like  display  of  feeling— not  its 
depths. 

57 


Life  and  To-morrow 


All  the  surprising  inconceivable  things  are 
done  by  good  women. 

The  best  of  women — and  the  worst — is 
never  in  such  spiritual  danger  as  when  some 
man  would  lead  her  to  understand  that  he 
regards  her  as  a  saint.  The  temptation  at  once 
to  prove  and  disprove  the  charge  is  great : 
the  difficulty  of  sustaining  the  reputation— yet 
greater.  For,  to  be  really  saint-like,  one  has 
to  be  pugnacious,  and  pugnacity  is  not  charm- 
ing. To  say  the  true  word  in  season  and  out 
of  season  is  a  harsh,  ungrateful  task.  All 
thanks  for  the  like  are  usually  sobbed  over 
gravestones,  old  letters,  and  dusty  keepsakes.  A 
loving  woman  deserves  much  credit  when  she 
can  cheerfully  abdicate  all  the  heart's  desire 
for  tenderness  in  favour  of  her  coffin-lid. 

Women  .  .  .  seem  to  exhaust  their  imagina- 
tive gifts  in  seeing  their  lovers  and  themselves 
as  they  are  not,  and,  in  order  to  make  up  for 
this  extravagance,  they  bring  a  cold,  discerning 
gaze  upon  all  other  persons  and  things  which 
come  in  their  way.  This  is  why  they  do  not 
excel  as  creative  artists.  They  are  artists  in 
their  lives  and  as  mimetic  performers,  but  they 
are  rarely  artistic  in  their  work.  Such  art  as 
Whistler  bestowed  on  etchings  is  given  by  many 
an  ordinary  woman  to  the  powdering  of  her 

58 


Men  and  Women 

cheeks.  The  grace  which  men  laboriously 
exercise  in  composing  verses  is  unconsciously 
squandered  by  women  in  the  improvisation  of 
small-talk.  Business-like  in  set  terms  they 
may  not  be,  but  they  are  incomparably  shrewd  ; 
and  their  shrewdness,  to  be  appreciated,  is  best 
seen  in  the  market-place,  where  they  shame  all 
males  by  their  hard  bargaining.  The  visions 
which  men  follow  seem  to  women  absurd  ;  their 
ambitions,  apart  from  merely  social  distinctions, 
seem  to  women  desalate;  the  problems  which 
drive  men  to  cynicism,  to  drink,  to  suicide,  do 
not  excite  as  much  as  wonder  in  their  mothers  ; 
the  contradiction  between  the  flesh  and  spirit 
does  not  enter  into  the  feminine  mind — she 
thinks  her  flesh  is  her  spirit — therein  lies  her 
great  power  over  the  miserably  thoughtful  and 
her  fascination  for  the  unwillingly  consistent. 
She  throws  a  glamour  over  all  wonderings  and 
gives  the  lie  to  any  theory  which  interferes  with 
her  practice,  whether  good,  indirectly  good,  or 
utterly  evil.  I  am  speaking  now  of  the  average 
woman.  There  have  been  no  great  women 
philosophers,  because  their  philosophy  is  in- 
stinctive. Few  women  can  read  Montaigne, 
fewer  still  can  endure  Rabelais,  and  those  who 
quote  Plato  misquote  him.  There  are  no  great 
women  historians— because  they  hate  the  past, 
and  affairs  of  State,  unless  their  men  relatives 
are  statesmen,  bore  them.  In  politics  they  are 
on  the  side  of  worldliness ;  as  diplomatists  they 

59 


Life  and  To-morrow 


are  over-elaborate ;  as  the  learned  they  are 
without  a  sense  of  humour. 

Once  i  saw  a  mother,  with  a  child  at  her 
breast,  pressing  through  a  vast  City  crowd 
to  see  the  Lord  Mayor's  chariot  pass  by.  At 
last  she  reached  a  front  place  :  she  held  the 
child  up  to  the  mounted  police  as  a  sign  of 
triumph.  But  the  child  was  dead.  I  have 
never  forgotten  that  scene ;  nor  the  laugh 
of  vindictive  defiance,  nor  the  terrible  cry  which 
followed  it.  I  have  often  thought  since  that 
it  was  a  history  of  most  women  who  want  a 
place  in  the  front  rank  on  the  great  highway. 
They  may  get  the  place,  but  the  thing  they 
love  best  has  been  sacrificed.  They  stand 
there  with  a  dead  burden  in  their  arms,  or  a 
dead  art  in  their  souls.  To  men,  the  storm 
and  strain  of  ambition  or  the  necessity  of  bread- 
winning  is  natural.  Moreover,  when  they  fight 
they  have  free  arms,  whereas  a  woman's  arms 
are  never  empty ;  if  she  has  no  children,  she 
has  her  mysterious  maternal  powers  and  affec- 
tions— affections  which  are  so  much  more 
subtle  and  consuming  than  the  affections  of 
men — her  wearing  sympathies,  and  nervous 
organisation,  which  can  bear  the  most  severe 
occasional  strains,  but  not  the  constant  fret 
of  a  daily  battle  for  standing  room. 

Any  absorbing  intellectual  work  makes 
60 


Men  and  Women 


men  capricious  and  grudging  in  their  love : 
they  differ  .  .  .  essentially  from  women,  who 
are  ever  willing,  under  the  stress  of  a  great 
passion  for  some  one  individual,  to  renounce 
power  and  glory  in  both  worlds.  The  woman 
without  a  human  love  sees  no  happiness  for 
herself  in  heaven  and  no  agony  to  fear  in  hell. 
.  .  .  The  suffering,  incomprehensible  sex,  who 
are  eternally  distracted  between  their  loneliness 
of  body  and  their  loneliness  of  soul— paying, 
backwards  and  forwards,  for  one  with  the 
other,  debtor  always,  either  to  their  dreams 
or  to  their  compromises— the  dreams  that  cost 
too  much,  the  compromises  that  can  never  be 
paid  for. 


61 


I 


Ill 


FRIENDSHIP 

There  is  a  love  can  find  its  one  expression  in  sympathy  and  all  its 
happiness  in  understanding* 

It  always  takes  three  to  make  a  really  edifying  Platonic  history. 


/ 


FRIENDSHIP 


What  is  it  that  can  bear  disillusion,  dis- 
appointment, your  absence,  and,  above  all,  your 
presence  ?  .  .  .  Friendship ! 

Nothing  in  nature  is  solitary:  go  into  a  desert 
and  you  will  be  the  only  lonely  thing  there  !  The 
sky  has  its  clouds  and  its  stars  ;  each  grain  o£ 
sand  is  surrounded  by  grains  of  sand !  There  are 
deep  sorrows  and  killing  cares  in  life,  but  the 
encouragement  and  love  of  friends  were  given 
us  to  make  all  diflSculties  bearable.  To  ignore 
such  aid  is  like  a  soldier  going  out  to  fight 
the  enemy  singlehanded,  leaving  his  armour  at 
home,  despising  his  comrades  and  setting  his 
commander  at  defiance. 

When  a  great  friendship  is  once  broken  it 
continues  like  some  solid  frame  made  for  a 
masterpiece  from  which  the  beautiful  picture 
has  been  roughly  cut.  The  habit  of  confidence, 
the  security  tried  by  many  tests,  the  knowledge 
gained  by  close  intercourse  remain,  but  the  heart 
of  it  all  is  absent ;  the  charm,  the  love,  and  the 
sympathy  are  no  more  there. 

65  s 


Life  and  To-morrow 


In  trivial  matters,  friends  are  always  ready- 
to  consult  each  other.  They  make  what  they 
are  doing— or  are  going  to  do — a  subject  of  fre- 
quent conversation.  They  consider  and  discuss 
together  every  unimportant  detail  of  their  lives. 
But  when  a  serious  problem  presents  itself,  men 
at  once  grow  cautious,  and,  at  the  very  moment 
when  advice  or  support  is  most  needed,  every 
one  resolves  to  think  for  himself. 

Perfect  friendship  casteth  out  fear.  Between 
friends  there  ought  to  be  no  dread  of  giving 
offence.  .  .  .  But,  at  the  same  time,  we  must  not 
think  that  our  friends  are  the  only  people  we 
can  treat  rudely,  and  with  unkindness. 

If  everybody  could  understand  us,  what  joy 
would  there  be  in  discovering  our  souls  to  those 
whom  we  love  ? 

The  first  exchange  of  confidences  between 
two  minds  in  sympathy  makes  a  delightful 
moment,  and  it  is,  moreover,  a  moment  which, 
in  various  degrees  of  delightfulness,  may  be 
repeated  so  often  as  one  finds  a  congenial  com- 
panion. But  things  can  be  told  for  the  first  time 
once  only.  That  experience  must  ever  be  unique. 
The  second  telling  renders  the  news  less  sacred ; 
at  each  repetition  it  loses  its  value  for  us.  Piece 
by  piece  it  ceases  to  be  ours,  and  finally  it  is 
carried  away  into  the  great  dead  sea  of  gossip. 

66 


Friendship 

The  intuition  which  comes  to  men  and  women 
through  suffering  has  always  the  certain  sharp- 
ness of  a  surgeon's  knife.  It  may  be  a  reassur- 
ance to  have  the  inmost  thought  plucked  at  by 
some  loving  spirit,  and  yet  it  is  seldom  that  the 
touch  can  be  given  without  inflicting  agony. 

If  there  is  an  attractiveness  in  human  beings 
so  lovely  that  it  could  call  .  .  .  Almighty  God 
Himself  from  Heaven  to  dwell  among  them  and 
to  die  most  cruelly  for  their  sakes,  is  it  to  be 
expected  that  they  will  not — and  who  dare  say 
that  they  should  not — as  mortals  themselves, 
discover  qualities  in  each  other  which  draw 
out  the  deepest  affections  ? 

All  men  need  to  have  near  them,  allied  in 
close  association  with  them,  either  a  force  to 
strengthen  their  weakness,  or  else  a  weakness 
which  insists  upon  some  demonstration  of  their 
strength.  In  conceivable  circumstances  it  might 
be  a  duty  to  dissever  such  a  bond ;  it  might  be 
a  duty  to  die  of  starvation  rather  than  steal  a 
loaf,  and,  as  death  would  ultimately  quench  the 
craving  stomach,  so  a  broken  soul,  in  time, 
would  cease  lamenting  for  its  maimed  energy. 

It  is  only  the  woman  who  is  herself  subtle  in 
friendship  who  feels  any  especial  jealousy  of  her 
husband  s  women  friends — so  long  as  they  are 
friends  only  and  not  to  be  even  imagined  as 

67 


Life  and  To-morrow 


lovers.  .  .  .  Where  an  attraction  between  two 
people  is  very  strong  any  calm  relationship  is 
out  of  the  question.  Where  there  is  no  sur- 
render, or  any  possibility  of  it,  there  must  be 
all  the  same  an  incessant  exhausting  struggle 
between  fixed  principles  and  instincts  which, 
although  they  can  be  conquered,  do  not  change. 

There  are  many  women  engaged  in  artistic 
and  other  professions,  who  are  thrown,  by  force 
of  circumstances,  almost  entirely  into  the  society 
of  men.  Sometimes  they  develope  into  what  is 
known  as  "  good  sorts ' --who  has  ever  written 
the  tragedy  of  a  good  sort  of  either  sex? — the 
self-abnegation,  the  stifled  instincts,  the  wounded 
pride,  the  untold,  unimagined  agonies  of  the 
''good  sort'*  by  common  consent?  .  .  ,  Such 
women  ought  never  to  think  of  domesticity  .  .  . 
they  may  seem  heartless  in  the  tender  sense 
because  they  cannot  find  security  in  depending 
on  one  individual  (as  a  rule  such  cautious  beings 
have  had  sorrow  and  learnt  the  frailty  of 
protesting  idealism) ;  they  stand  altogether 
apart  from  the  average  girl  or  woman,  and, 
with  a  vocation  for  comradeship,  they  make 
incomparable  friends. 

No  WOMAN  incapable  of  very  deep  feeling 
could  please,  even  in  the  most  rigid  degree,  a 
man  worth  knowing.  It  is  the  ability  to  feel 
sanely  and  thoroughly  which  attracts  confidence, 

68 


Friendship 

and  it  is  this  temperament,  made  up  of  all  the 
subtle  qualities  of  sex,  education,  and  experi- 
ence, which  renders  .  .  .  mixed  friendships  so 
powerful,  so  dangerous,  and  so  difficult. 

So-called  Platonics  are  possible  for  one  of 
the  two,  but  never  for  both. 

In  all  such  relations  there  is  always  one, 
at  any  rate,  whose  gaiety  walks  in  sack-cloth, 
whose  admitted  devotion  is  a  heart-breaking 
privilege. 

While  human  nature  remains  human  nature, 
any  endeavour  to  maintain  a  purely  spiritual,  or 
intellectual,  attitude  between  two  hearts  in  syni- 
pathy  means  that  one,  at  any  rate,  of  the  experi- 
mentalists, will  have  a  bitter  disappointment. 

Young  v/omen  should  realise  that  there  is 
always  another  side  to  their  romantic  and 
spiritual  alliances.  Man  is  not  a  spirit.  There 
is  always  some  one  who  pays  for  the  rarefied 
atmosphere  of  wholly  intellectual  joys. 

A  Platonic  friendship  is  an  unhealthy  lie. 


69 


IV 


MARRIAGE 

Marriage  is  like  a  good  pie  spoilt  in  the  baking.  E-erything  is  admirable 
except  the  result. 


MARRIAGE 


In  marriage  one  does  not  require  an  uncon- 
querable love  but  an  invincible  sympathy. 

Do  NOT  MARRY  a  woman  whom  you  can  just 
manage  to  live  with,  but  the  woman  without 
whom  you  cannot  live  at  all. 

The  Catholic  ideal  of  marriage  is  magni- 
ficent, poetical,  mystic,  sublime ;  but  it  is  not 
domesticity.  It  is  worldly-wise  ;  but  it  is  not 
domesticity.  It  protects  men  and  women  from 
the  worst  consequences  of  their  passions — a 
public  trial  and  a  second  marriage  more  disas- 
trous than  the  first ;  but  it  is  not  domesticity. 
It  warns  women  of  the  uncertainty  of  love,  and 
it  saves  men  from  the  obligation  of  marrying 
those  whom  they  have  disgraced  or  deceived  ; 
but  it  is  not  domesticity. 

Men  who  have  never  really  loved  anybody 
do  not  understand.  .  .  .  They  look  on,  as  the 
man  who  stupefies  himself  with  overwork  looks 
on  at  the  man  who  drugs  himself  with  opium. 

73 


Life  and  To-morrow 

And  .  .  .  men  and  women  who  do  not  know 
what  a  horrible,  degrading,  and  loathsome 
relationship  marriage  can  be,  are  full  of 
sickening  false  sentiment  about  divorce. 

Trouble  comes— not  from  the  deficient  heart 
or  ill-matched  hearts,  but  from  ill-matched 
visions. 

An  unmarried  man  is  an  untested  man — in 
most  cases,  a  shirker  of  responsibiHties. 

It  is  called,  and  justly  called,  madness— 
when  we  realise  the  expenses  of  modern  living— 
for  a  briUiant  man  to  marry  for  love  only  at  the 
beginning  of  his  career.    At  the  very  period, 
therefore,  when  a  good  woman's  influence  (and 
it  must  be  an  influence  that  is  sympathetic)  is 
as  necessary  to  a  man's  character  as  his  own 
legitimate  ambition,  he  is  warned  by  example 
and  precept  to  avoid  the  danger  of  his  best 
sentiments.    He  will  be  too  romantic— while  he 
is  young— to  marry  a  fortune ;  too  proud— while 
he  is  young— to  show  preference  where  he  may 
actually  feel  it,  if  the  girl  happens  to  be  an 
heiress  ;  too  sane  to  risk  the  consequences  of  a 
precarious  establishment.    What  is  the  result? 
The  poor  young  men  who  rush  blindly  into 
matrimony  with  penniless  wives  do  not  do  so 
because  they  are  more  courageous  than  those 

74 


Marriage 

who  remain  single,  but  because  they  are  less 
intelligent.  They  have  not  looked  ahead,  and 
they  are  quite  unable  to  bear  the  reproofs,  when 
they  come,  of  their  folly.  And  it  must  be 
remembered  also  that  the  demands  upon  a  man's 
purse  are  great  precisely  in  proportion  to  his 
success  and  reputation.  .  .  .  England  is  of  all 
countries  the  most  forbidding  for  people  with 
limited  means.  .  .  .  Love  is  not  a  business 
relation,  but  housekeeping  beyond  doubt  is  the 
very  beginning  of  all  commerce.  It  must  be 
considered  squarely  from  all  standpoints,  and,  of 
all  disastrous  mistakes,  the  mistake  of  not  pro- 
viding for  the  future  wives  and  mothers  of 
Englishmen  is  the  most  ghastly  social  evil.  .  .  . 
Much  is  said  and  written  about  drunkenness  ; 
much  is  said  or  written  on  one  or  two  other 
flamboyant  topics — but  it  ought  to  be  apparent 
that  one  main  cause  of  our  worst  domestic 
crimes  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  our  women 
are  mostly  dowerless.  They  must  either  be 
given  money  or  they  must  make  it.  They  must 
have  something  to  marry  on  or  they  must 
remain  single.  Men  of  position  and  means  do 
not  often  choose  poor  brides  ;  Cinderella  is  a 
fairy  tale :  men  of  great  ability  are  seldom 
capitalists  from  the  cradle. 

A  man's  moral  force  depends  almost  wholly 
on  his  wife— or  his  women  friends  ;  but  most  of 
all  on  his  wife. 

75 


Life  and  To-morrow 


A  GIRL,  as  a  rule,  seems  to  believe  that  she 
can  make  a  man  happy  merely  by  loving  him. 
Again  and  again  friends  of  mine  have  married 
in  this  idea.    And  the  hope  seldom  answers. 

Marriage  is  a  discipline  of  character — 
nothing  else. 

If  women  thought  less  of  their  own  souls 
and  more  about  men's  tempers,  marriage  would 
not  be  what  it  is. 

A  WOMAN  NEED  NOT  be  evil  in  order  to  destroy 
a  man's  career.  Good  women  can  make  their 
homes  intolerable — by  tempers,  or  stupidity,  or 
their  mere  ways.  Many  people  have  excellent 
morals  but  the  most  odious  ways.  Say  two 
charming  people,  who  are  nevertheless  not 
charming  to  each  other,  happen  to  marry.  Each 
is  put  out  of  tune  and  each  life  is  absolutely 
spoilt. 

Why  do  women  marry?  From  mistaken 
ideas  of  happiness.  .  .  .  Most  of  us  get  to  know 
it  by  suffering.  Suppose  a  woman  marries  for 
companionship.  .  .  .  Who  gets  his  brilliancy? 
Other  people.  He  is  with  his  wife  only  when  he 
is  too  tired  or  too  ill  to  be  with  anybody  else  ! 
Say  she  marries  for  love.  Will  he  understand  her  ? 
Never,  and  the  purer  and  the  deeper  her  love, 

76 


Marriage 

the  less  he  will  understand  her.  Say  one  marries 
a  protector— a  man  of  action.    When  he  is  not 
fighting  in  some  way  with  his  fellow-men,  he 
wants  to  kill  poor  harmless  birds  and  animals, 
or  travel  about  like  the  Wandering  Jew.  Men 
of  action  only  go  home  to  sleep,  and  as  they  can 
sleep  anywhere  with  more  or  less  comfort,  it 
seems  great  waste  to  offer  them  a  home  at  all ! 
...  But  a  woman  cannot  stand  alone.    It  is  all 
very  well  to  say,  Love  children.    To  have  chil- 
dren, one  must  marry.  .  .  .  That  is  the  one  safe 
reason  for  marriage— to  have  a  family  and 
bring  them  up  as  Christians.  .  .  .  Some  mar- 
riages are  childless.  .  .  .  But  that  doesn't  affect 
the  intention.    The  shocking  thing  is  to  marry 
without  the  intention  as  so  many  couples  do 
nowadays !    No  wonder  they  are  all  nervous  and 
rickety  and  old  before  their  time  !  .  .  .  Still, 
even  with  a  family  one  has  certain  ideals  as 
well  as    duties.     What    about  romance  and 
poetry?  ...  It  isn't  in  husbands— unless  they 
happen  to  write  poetry  themselves.    Even  then 
.  .  .  it  all  goes  into  the  poetry— they  live  as 
other  men  live  when  they  are  not  writing. 
Men,  after  all,  were  not  born  to  be  companions 
to  women;    the    men    who    have  charming, 
thoughtful  ways  are  either  effeminate  or  more 
fastidious  than  nine  women  out  of  ten.  Such 
men  make    better    friends  and    lovers  than 
husbands;  as  husbands,  they  are  moody  and 
uncertain— if  not  actually  invalidish. 

77 


Life  and  To-morrow 

He  was  not  the  first  bridegroom  who  felt 
loath,  on  the  eve  of  his  marriage,  to  change  the 
delicate,  almost  ethereal  tenderness  of  betrothed 
lovers  for  the  close  and  intimate  association  of 
husband  and  wife.  The  one  relationship  has 
something  in  it  immaterial,  exquisite,  and  un- 
earthly, a  bond  invisible  and  yet  as  potent  as 
the  winds  which  we  cannot  see  and  the  melodies 
we  only  hear.  The  other,  with  its  profound 
appeals  to  mortality,  its  demands  upon  all  that 
is  strongest  in  affection  and  eternal  in  courage, 
its  irreparableness,  suffering,  and  constancy, 
may,  indeed,  have  the  grandeur  of  all  human 
tragedy,  and  the  dignity  of  a  holy  state  ;  but 
that  it  can  ever  be  so  beautiful  as  the  love 
which  is  a  silent  influence.  ...  is  an  incon- 
ceivable idea. 

The  ordinary  marriage  is  sometimes  re- 
garded as  the  prefiguration  of  the  mystical 
union  of  souls.  There  are  some  beings  .  .  .  who 
seem  to  reach,  at  the  very  outset,  the  ultimate 
condition  of  ideal  happiness.  To  them,  the 
thought  of  any  commoner  relationship  would  be 
— not  a  fall  only — but  an  impossibility  !  Such 
beings  are  rare — though  not  so  rare  as  many 
would  believe.  They  are  seldom  understood.  It 
is  always  unwise  to  quote  them  to  the  mass  of 
men  and  women.  The  counsels  of  perfection 
.  .  .  are  fit  only  for  those  who  are  able  to  hear 
such  sayings. 

78 


Marriage 

Most  men  have  veiled  portraits  in  their 
hearts.  Most  men  could  close  their  eyes  and  see 
the  sacred  days  their  lips  may  never  tell  of. 
Many  a  man  has  loved  a  woman  well,  yet 
married  a  name  well,  also. 

Makriage  is  an  incomparable  relationship, 
and  each  marriage  has  its  unique  difficulties  or 
advantages.  One  is  sorry  for  unhappy  people 
who  are  too  weak  to  complain  or  to  rebel.  But 
if  you  save  them  from  one  tyranny  they  fall  at 
once  under  the  spell  of  some  other.  Often,  too, 
they  do  not  know  how  wretched  they  are  till  the 
preferred  tyranny  is  in  sight ! 

If  marriage  is  not  for  heaven,  I  wonder 
why  all  its  laws  are  made  there  !  On  earth, 
when  two  people  are  happy,  one  is  soon  taken 
and  the  mourner  is  told  not  to  weep— for  they 
shall  surely  meet  again  hereafter.  But  when 
two  people  are  wretched  and  their  union  is  a 
bondage,  they  are  taught  to  endure  each  other 
patiently  in  this  world— which  is  brief— because 
they  shall  be  separated  in  the  next— which  is 
eternal ! 

You  might  as  well  flirt  with  the  Ten 
Commandments  as  fall  in  love  with  your  wife. 
.  .  .  Never  begin  love-making  with  the  lady  you 
hope  to  marry.  It  will  end  in  disaster.  Because 
the  day  must  come  when  she  will  wonder  whv 

79  ^ 


Life  and  To-morrow 


you  have  changed.  ...  A  wife  should  be  the 
one  woman  in  the  world  with  whom  you  can 
spend  days  and  weeks  of  unreproved  coldness. 

Those  who  have  made  unhappy  marriages 
walk  on  stilts,  while  the  happy  ones  are  on  a 
level  with  the  crowd.    No  one  sees  them. 

Mareiage  rarely  does  prove  anything. 
The  third  person  who  could  explain  is  always 
silent. 


80 


V 


YOUTH  AND  AGE 

Is  a  wish  remaining 
From  thy  youth  ? 
This  thou  art  retaining, 
If  'twas  truth. 


I 


YOUTH  AND  AGE 


Th^^se  young  people  who  quote  Romeo  and 
Juhet  rememhev  the  Ballroom  and  the  Balcony, 
but  they  are  by  no  means  prepared  to  follow 
their  heroic  patterns  to  the  tomb. 

wh^T  •  •  -^^^^^n  instinctive  philosophy 

which  they  cannot  formulate;  but,  when  the 
pams  and  responsibilities  of  life  surprise  them, 
they  show   as  a  rule,  a  courage  which  puts 

ZlTT  professional 
sufferer  I  mean  any  person  who  has  great  self- 
knowledge,  a  consummate  gift  for  its  expression 
m  language,  and  an  abnormal  talent  for  feeling 
discomforts  and  discovering  the  ugly. 

^  In  controlling,  or  subduing  altogether  the 
softer  possibilities  in  a  character,  there  is  always 
the  danger  lest  uncharitableness,  hardness  of 
heart,  or  blind  severity  of  judgment  should  take 
their  place.  Young  people  with  strong  natures 
can  seldom  find  the  middle  course  between 
extremes,  and  this  one,  in  curbing  a  desire  for 
power,  will  fairly  crush  his  whole  vigour,  while 


Life  and  To-morrow 

that  one,  in  revolt  against  the  tyranny  of  love, 
will  become  the  slave  of  pessimism.  .  .  .  The 
strife  between  the  flesh  and  the  spirit  .  .  .  goes 
on  in  all  lives,  but  .  .  .  whatever  the  issue  of  it 
all  may  be,  a  man  must  be  a  man  while  he  may 
—losing  himself  neither  in  the  whirl  of  passion 
nor  in  the  enervating  worlds  of  reverie,  but 
accepting  the  fulness  of  existence— its  pains, 
vanities,  pleasures,  cares,  sorrows — with  a 
fighter's  courage  and  the  fortitude  of  an 
immortal  soul. 

Youth  is  naturally  impatient,  and  is  not 
content  to  remain  blind  for  even  three  days 
like  St.  Paul,  nor  can  young  enthusiasm  believe 
readily  that  those  also  serve  who  only  stand  and 
wait.  The  impulse  is  to  rush  into  the  fray,  to 
kill  or  be  killed,  but  both  or  either  without  loss 
of  time  or  hindrance.  Vanity,  too,  and  ambition, 
no  less  than  a  zeal  of  serving  the  Almighty  and 
humanity,  may  have  something  to  do  with  the 
fierceness  of  this  desire,  so  easy  is  it  to  flatter 
the  soul  that  the  glorification  of  self  is  all  to  the 
glory  of  God. 

All  youth  that  is  strong  and  thoughtful  has 
much  of  .  .  .  the  instinct  of  dissimulation.  The 
world — to  a  young  mind — appears  controlled  by 
elderly,  suspicious,  hateful  custodians  ever  on 
the  alert  to  capture,  or  thwart,  every  high 
enterprise  and  every  passionate  desire.  There 

84 


Youth  and  Age 

seems  a  vast  conspiracy  against  happiness — the 
withered,  dreary  wiseacres  in  opposition  to  the 
joy,  the  daring,  the  beauty,  the  reckless  vitality 
of  souls  still  under  the  spell  of  spring. 

A  LOVE  OF  YOUNG  PEOPLE  is  not  common  in 
elderly  persons.  Real  sympathy  with  youth 
is  a  rare  and  touching  quality,  which  depends  on 
one's  imagination,  but  even  more  on  one's 
experience — and  less  on  one's  experience  of 
happiness  than  on  one's  experience  of  difficulties 
and  disappointments,  for  the  people  who  are 
kindest  to  the  young  are  usually  those  who  have 
had  sorrow. 

They  say  old  people  do  the  thinking.  That 
is  nonsense.  Young  people  think  and  think  till 
they  become  old  and  forget  what  the  questions 
were  which  troubled  them  so  much.  Time 
answers  questions  by  deadening  all  our  faculties 
and  sensations. 

I  HEAR  AND  READ  much  stufp  about  the  joys 
of  childhood  and  girlhood.  Children  are  often 
utterly  wretched — because  they  see  so  much 
deceit  around  them,  and  are  told  so  many  lies. 
Girls  have  many  sorrowful  hours,  because  they 
too  are  told  lies,  and  they  meet  with  disappoint- 
ments, and  make  mistakes,  and  look  for  a 
happiness  which  does  not  seem  to  exist  at  all. 
No  old  woman  is  ever  so  lonely  as  a  young 

85 


Life  and  To-morrow 

girl  can  be.  An  old  woman  may  know  that 
there  are  worse  things  than  loneliness,  but  a 
girl  thinks  nothing  can  be  so  hard  to  bear.  A 
girl  wishes  to  be  loved  by  some  one  whom  she 
can  adore  :  an  old  woman  is  contented  if  she 
can  send  flowers  to  a  grave  and  deceive  herself 
about  the  faults  of  the  dead  under  the  stone.  .  .  . 
It  is  the  young  who  are  broken-hearted — not  the 
middle-aged,  not  the  elderly. 


86 


VI 


HUMAN  NATURE 

Watch  the  sky  and  you  will  learn  the  hearts  of  men.  Observe  the 
changing  light,  the  clouds  driven  by  the  wind,  the  glimpses  of  pure  blue, 
the  sudden  blackness,  the  startling  brilliancy,  and  then — the  monotonous 
grey. 


HUMAN  NATURE 

There  is  a  story  told  of  a  man  who  begged 
his  wife  to  tell  him  his  besetting  sin,  "  In  order," 
said  he,  "  that  I  may  conquer  it,  and  so  please 
you  in  all  respects."  With  much  reluctance,  and 
only  after  many  exhortations  to  be  honest,  the 
lady  repHed  that  she  feared  he  was  selfish. 
"I  am  not  perfect,"  said  her  husband,  "and 
perhaps  I  am  a  sinful  creature,  but  if  there  is  a 
fault  which  I  thank  God  I  do  not  possess  it  is 
selfishness.  Anything  but  that!"  And  as  he 
spoke  he  passed  her  the  apples— they  were  at 
luncheon— and  set  himself  to  work  on  the  only 
peach. 

Many  men  have  ability,  few  have  genius, 
but  fewer  still  have  character.  .  .  .  Character  is 
the  rarest  thing  in  England.  ...  By  character 
I  mean  that  remnant  of  a  man's  life  which  is 
probably  stronger  than  death,  and  ought  to  be 
stronger  than  worldly  considerations. 

The  great  gift  of  self-knowledge— though  a 
89 


Life  and  To-morrow 


painful  blessing — is  still  our  greatest,  and  the 
one  to  be  prayed  for  above  all  others ;  for  the 
man  who  knows  himself  in  all  his  great  imper- 
fections and  small  virtues  suffers  more  under 
praise  than  he  ever  could  under  censure — which, 
at  worst,  can  only  remind  him  of  what  his  too- 
willing  conscience  has  forgotten. 

People  are  .  .  .  utterly  dissimilar ;  stupidity 
can  affect  the  degree,  but  not  the  pain,  of  each 
creatures  discomfort;  although  everybody  has 
a  grievance  and  an  opinion,  few  believe  in  or 
care  to  hear  the  grievances  and  opinions  of 
others.  By  education,  systematised  or  other- 
wise, men  and  women  soften,  perfect,  or  conceal 
the  qualities  which  nature  gave  them ;  but  they 
of  themselves  can  add  nothing  to  their  natural 
gifts.  The  pear-tree  cannot  be  cultivated  into 
an  oak,  and  genius  cannot  be  manufactured 
from  the  uninspired. 

A  person  who  is  not  an  egoist  at  all  is  either 
a  nonentity  or  a  hypocrite  ;  education  and  disci- 
pline are  given  in  order  that  the  ego  may  gain 
grace,  but  an  utterly  destroyed  egoism  is  a  body 
bereft  of  its  soul. 

If  it  were  not  for  the  egoists  we  should 
learn  very  little  about  ourselves. 

If  a  man  cannot  love  himself,  whom  he  can 
90 


Human  Nature 


justify  as  a  rule,  how  can  he  love  the  stranger, 
whom  he  does  not  understand  in  the  least  ?  The 
first  notes  in  a  man's  harmonious  relations  with 
the  universe  must  be  struck  in  unison  with  his 
own  soul  and  his  own  emotions. 

Do  JUSTICE  to  your  brother,  Ruskin  has  said ; 
you  can  do  that  whether  you  love  him  or  not ; 
and  you  will  come  to  love  him.  You  must  build 
upon  justice.  Charity,  real  charity,  which  means 
love,  is  not  the  beginning  but  the  final  reward 
of  good  work. 

It  is  something  to  learn  how  to  sympathise 
with  happiness.  Our  best  men  and  women 
devote  themselves  too  exclusively  to  the 
diagnosis  of  misery. 

Ws  ALL  KNOW  that  Proper  Pride  is  the  broad 
root  from  which  all  love  stories  in  fiction, 
drama,  and  poetry  fatally  grow — either  for  sad- 
ness or  delight.  .  .  .  But  what  is  it  ?  ...  I  am 
prepared  to  swear  that  it  is  a  manufactured — as 
opposed  to  a  natural — calamity.  We  are  not 
born  with  this  bore  attached  to  our  sufficiently 
oppressed  spirits  :  it  is  added  to  us  first  by  our 
parents,  relatives,  nurses  and  other  guardians, 
then  by  the  education  we  receive,  then  by  the 
books  we  read,  then  by  the  counsel  of  our 
friends— themselves  groaning  under  the  burden 
of  the  incubus.    Reduced  to  its  simplest  form, 

91 


Life  and  To-morrow 


Proper  Pride  and  its  exercise  may  be  called  the 
restraint  of  every  kind  of  impulse  which  makes 
for  the  simplification  of  human  affairs — whether 
on  the  trivial  or  the  grand  scale. 

One  is  told  so  much  by  amateurs  of  immora- 
lity about  the  dreary  humdrum  of  virtue,  that 
it  is  refreshing  to  find  a  picture — in  Ouida's 
"  Friendship  " — of  the  more  tedious  humdrum  of 
vice.  Dulness  is  a  quality  in  the  individual ;  if 
there  are  dull  matrons  there  is  also  an  infinite 
crowd  of  very  dull  wantons ;  there  are  dull 
villains  as  well  as  dull  patterns  of  propriety ;  if 
sermons  can  be  dull,  comedies  can  be  much 
duller.  It  is  not  the  sin  which  makes  the  sinner 
attractive,  nor  the  band  which  makes  an  occasion 
lively.  .  .  .  When  a  virtuous  woman  is  tedious, 
she  is  not  tedious  because  she  is  chaste,  but 
because  she  is  unimaginative  or  mentally  stupid, 
and  when  an  immoral  woman  is  brilliant,  she  is 
not  brilliant  because  she  is  immoral,  but  because 
she  happens  to  have  brains.  St.  Teresa  was 
more  brilliant  than  Catherine  of  Russia ;  and 
Isabella  of  Castille — more  beautiful  than  Mary 
Stuart  and  better  loved — was  incomparably  her 
superior  in  statesmanship.  But  all  four  are 
eternally  interesting. 

Men  who  will  watch  with  painful  and  inex- 
haustible solicitvide  every  fluctuation  of  the 
money  market,  and  women  who  will  become 

92 


Human  Nature 

inspired  in  their  eagerness  to  follow  every  shade 
of  change  in  a  lover  s  temper,  are  nevertheless 
dense,  unobservant,  and  always  wrong  when 
they  have  to  deal  with  the  character  of  any  near 
blood  relation.  No  one  denies  that  an  individual 
is  least  known  by  the  members  of  his  own 
family:  brothers  and  sisters  on  the  subject  of 
each  other's  peculiarities  are  often  very  amusing, 
but  they  are  never  right.  Few  parents  can 
manage  their  own  children;  fewer  still  have 
the  gift  of  gaining  their  confidence,  and  the 
grinding  tragedy  of  family  life  Hes  in  the  fact 
that  familiarity  with  a  person's  mannerisms  is 
accepted  indolently  as  intimacy  with  that  per- 
son's heart.  .  .  .  Human  beings  change  hourly 
and  daily,  and  it  is  piteous  to  find  people  who, 
while  they  admit  that  the  laws  of  transition  and 
development  are  the  first  laws  of  life,  will  not 
take  the  trouble  to  remember  them  in  connection 
with  those  whom  they  are  taught  to  regard  as 
their  nearest  and  dearest. 

A  SELF-SUFFICIENT  SOUL— if  there  be,  in  truth, 
such  a  soul— is  a  diseased  soul  suffering  from 
vanity  and  incapable  of  deep  feeling.  .  .  .  How 
do  they  live  their  lives?  On  consideration,  it 
will  be  found  that  they  are  spent  in  day-dreams, 
castle-building,  in  the  playing,  for  their  own 
benefit,  of  fine  parts,  in  the  nourishment  of  some 
fixed  idea,  some  grievance,  or  some  form  of 
vanity.    There  is  no  heroism,  or  turpitude,  of 

93 


Life  and  To-morrow 

which  they  are  not  capable  in  imagination  and 
unobserved,  but  the  other  side  of  the  existence 
is  pure  sham.  ...  To  be  self-sufficient  is  to  be 
undeveloped:  the  higher  the  intelHgence,  the 
stronger  its  need  of  association  with  other 
intelligences:  the  more  vigorous  the  animal, 
the  more  oppressive  is  the  melancholy  of  con- 
tinuous solitude.  The  people  who  perish  under 
loneliness  are  not  the  w^eak  in  mind  and  body- 
not  the  sickly,  but  the  strong  and  the  sane. 
Their  very  strength  and  their  very  sanity  make, 
failing  the  legitimate  struggle  with  outside  in- 
fluence, for  self-destruction. 

Of  dreamers  there  are  many  kinds,  but  the 
key  to  their  apparent  irresolution  is  not  the 
fear  of  realities,  but  egoism— the  shirking  of  all 
things  or  anything  which  might  involve  a 
sacrifice  or  a  responsibility.  Other  men,  not 
timorous  of  life,  will  refuse  to  beheve  that 
happiness  is  either  so  easy  or  so  simple  as  God 
has  made  it.  They  make  trouble  the  measure 
of  prizes  worth  holding.  But  it  must  be  pic- 
turesque, eventful,  agitating  trouble. 

That  fastidious,  elusive  instinct  .  .  .  which 
always  makes  for  suffering  .  .  .  may  accompany 
keen  susceptibilities,  strong  emotions,  and  pro- 
found affections— yet,  lurking  always  in  the 
depths,  it  is  the  torturing  under-current  which  is 
so  much  stronger  than  the  surface  tide.  As  per- 

94 


Human  Nature 


sons  possessing  this  temperament  grow  older  they 
do  not  become  less  fastidious,  but  they  learn  to  be 
more  stern  toward  forbidding  ideas  and  more 
gracious  toward  forbidding  appearances — for 
few  things  that  we  see  can  be  so  repulsive 
as  many  things  that  live  acceptably  in  the 
mind. 

People  who  are  for  ever  talking  about  the 
soul  are  secretly  gross,  and  people  who  are  for 
ever  talking  about  the  body — let  us  call  it  Walt 
Whitmanese — are  generally  unwholesome.  We 
are  human  beings,  and  to  set  up  these  difficulties 
in  one  organism  between  the  flesh  and  the  spirit 
is  as  though  a  horse  made  his  hind  legs  kick 
his  fore  legs  by  way  of  showing  his  desire  for 
a  higher  life  ! 

Healthy- MINDED  lads  do  not  sit  brooding 
over  their  instincts  till  they  are  hatched  into 
Christian  virtues  and  deadly  sins :  their  conscience 
warns  them  which  to  follow  and  which  to  shun, 
but  the  why,  the  wherefore,  and  the  psycho- 
logical meaning  of  it  all  does  not  trouble  them 
in  the  least. 

While  we  exist  we  can  never  escape  any 
stage  of  development ;  if  our  infancy  be  prema- 
turely wise,  our  years  of  discretion  will  have  an 
inappropriate  childishness. 

95 


Life  and  To-morrow 


No  ONE  IS  BORN  a  husband  and  no  one  is  born 
a  pious,  homicidal  hero!  At  first  he  is  just 
man — man  with  a  birthright  of  seven  deadly- 
sins  and  one  small  conscience.  There  never  was 
a  saint,  you  may  rest  perfectly  sure,  but  he 
might  have  failed  twenty  times  a  day,  if  he  had 
not  fought  the  enemy  with  fine  courage. 

The  weak  or  the  strong  ...  a  truer  division 
of  humanity  than  the  ordinary  distinctions 
which  classify  them  as  the  good  and  the  bad, 
or  the  rich  and  the  poor,  or  the  happy  and  the 
unhappy.  Many  of  the  rich  are  good  and  happy, 
many  of  the  poor  are  bad  and  strong ;  many  of 
the  rich  are  strong  and  wretched,  many  of  the 
poor  are  weak  and  happy:  the  play  on  these 
conditions  is  as  various  as  the  combination  of 
notes  in  the  musical  scale,  but  strong  or  weak 
one  must  be. 

The  race  is  not  to  the  swift,  nor  the  battle 
to  the  strong,  and  if  it  is  the  weak  and  slow 
who  win,  how  is  it  done  save  by  the  most 
painful  efforts,  the  sternest  self-discipline,  the 
most  dogged  courage,  and  the  most  touching 
patience  ? 

It  might  seem  that  a  man,  to  whom  Folly 
presented  herself  with  a  crown  of  horrors,  was 
in  small  danger  of  committing  a  foolish  act. 
But  Folly — no  less   than  Wisdom — has  her 


Human  Nature 


martyrs,  and,  while  she  deceives  the  weak  by 
flattery,  she  warns  the  strong,  with  a  candour 
even  more  dangerous  than  her  blandishments, 
that  her  discipline  is  cruel  and  her  reward  an 
ordeal. 

If  you  are  convinced,  you  will  have  the 
courage  of  that  conviction.  If  you  are  not 
convinced,  then  you  are  bound  to  be  timorous 
and  faltering. 

You  CANNOT  BE  LOYAL  to  your  highest  beliefs 
and  please  the  mob — or  any  little  parcel  of  it — 
at  the  same  time.  Of  course,  there  is  some- 
thing, in  fact,  a  great  deal,  to  be  said  for  the 
conventional  point  of  view.  But  if  you  cannot 
with  perfect  sincerity  accept  it,  do  not  attempt 
odious  compromises  and  outward  forms  of 
subserviency  to  laws  which  you  find  unjust. 
It  is  no  disgrace  to  be  mistaken :  it  is  a  crime 
to  be  a  hypocrite.  That  is  the  sin  against  light 
— the  worst  of  all. 

If  you  give  in  to  prejudices — merely  for 
your  own  individual  peace  and  quietness — is 
not  that  taking  root,  as  it  were,  with  the  whole 
trouble?  Agitation  should  be  kept  up  by  the 
personally  contented— not  the  personally  dis- 
contented. A  great  artist  is  his  own  most 
severe  critic ;  but  we  leave  the  criticism  of  our 
lives  to  outsiders.     We  accept  conditions  in 

97  G 


Life  and  To-morrow 

tlie  cowardly  hope  that  others  will  put  them 
right.  .  .  .  You  can  neither  march  with  pre- 
judices nor  against  them  on  the  unaided 
starving  strength  of  a  personal  conviction. 
Money  must  have  its  great  part  in  the  fight — 
whether  as  a  forfeit  or  a  reward  or  as  a 
vulgar  guarantee. 

Our  greatest  passions  can  be  traced  to  our 
meanest  instincts,  and  the  fine  names  we  have 
invented  for  successful  selfishness  mean  no 
more  in  reality  than  the  base  ones  which  we 
contemptuously  bestow  on  the  selfishness 
which  fails. 

When  a  real  passion  enters  a  man  it  drives 
the  soul  out,  and  that  man  becomes,  for  a  time 
at  all  events,  the  mere  gourd  or  the  mere  worm 
which  God  prepared— the  one  to  be  destroyed 
and  the  other  to  be  the  destroyer. 

Passionate  natures  make  mistakes  fre- 
quently, come  to  ruin  not  seldom,  but  flippant 
people  have  often  a  great  deal  of  shrewd  sense 
in  the  conduct  of  life.  Their  hatred  of  peril 
and  pain  makes  them  instinctively  far-seeing. 

Jealousy  founded  on  reason  is  like  every- 
thing else  founded  on  reason — a  matter  within 
the  reach  of  wisdom  and  justice.  But  the 
jealousy  which  comes  from  selfishness,  and  is 


Human  Nature 


dependent  mainly  on  mere  suspicion  or  appear- 
ances, is  a  disease  of  the  mind.  It  must  run 
its  dreadful  course,  and  when  it  does  not 
culminate  in  crime,  it  is  cured — if  it  be  ever 
cured— by  time  or  a  tragedy  ...  it  is  the  com- 
mon malady  of  misanthropists  and  cynics  and 
the  disillusioned :  they  give  it  many  names, 
yet  jealousy,  not  of  the  nobler  sort,  it  remains. 

Just  as  the  imphudent  man  will  sometimes 
atone  for  a  lifetime  of  unwisdom  by  a  stroke  of 
overpowering  prudence,  so  the  prudent  man, 
after  a  lifetime  of  unswerving  carefulness,  will 
commit  an  act  of  supreme,  of  thundering  im- 
becility. This  is  nature  s  justice— it  is  truly  as 
wild  as  revenge. 

To  WEIGH  OTHER  MINDS  by  our  own  is  the 
false  scale  by  which  the  greater  number  of  us 
miscalculate  all  human  actions  and  most  human 
characters. 

The  philosopher  may  be  delivered  from 
the  oppression  of  facts  by  losing  himself  in 
his  own  ideas,  but  an  ordinary  man  will  think 
only  when  he  must,  and  thought  to  him— so  far 
from  being  the  anodyne  for  egoism,  is  self- 
revelation  at  its  plainest. 

If  the  mob  insists  on  certitude,  it  is  because 
it  has  no  time  to  argue.     The  rank  and  file 

99 


Life  and  To-morrow 


in  an  army  would  rather  be  shot  than  think 
why  they  are  fighting. 

When  one  human  being  attains,  by  over- 
persuasion  or  management,  the  apparent 
mastery  of  another,  it  should  always  be 
remembered  that  the  persuaded  one  has 
a  willingness  for  some  motive,  either  secret 
or  expressed,  to  be  led.  The  weakest  in- 
dividual has  a  lurking  strong  desire  some- 
where, which,  never  suspected  and  never 
acknowledged,  is,  perhaps,  never  asserted 
except  under  the  encouragement  of  an  outside 
influence.  Temptations  are  not  dangerous 
unless  they  appeal  to  a  tendency  or  a  need. 

The  ungovernable  chabm  of  sinners  so- 
named  lies,  no  doubt,  in  their  willingness  to 
speak  out.  This  makes  them  enticing  company, 
and  often  a  man  is  blamed  for  mixing  with 
disreputable  associates  when  it  is  not  their 
wickedness  at  all,  but  their  candour  which  calls 
to  him.  But  the  candour  is  not,  perhaps,  about 
the  best  things  in  life,  so  the  instruction  gained 
is  partial  only  and  the  light  thrown  does  not 
go  far. 

One  may  love  a  sinner,  an  unfortunate, 
even  the  reckless  sensualist,  but  not  a 
hypocrite.  .  .  .  Hypocrisy  rises  from  a  frozen 
hell ;  it  blasts,  it  cuts  our  shivering  charity,  it 

100 


Human  Nature 


beats  and  pinches  like  quick-fingered  sleet,  it 
enters  with  snowy  dart  into  our  ice-bound 
kindness. 

It  is  always  disastrous  to  pin  one's  faith 
to  a  mere  mortal.  Even  the  best  of  us  are 
miserably  imperfect  as  rocks  of  defence  ;  you 
see,  we  are  flesh  and  blood,  we  are  not 
granite. 

Stick  to  the  Immortals  :  they  will  never 
disappoint  you.  And  they  are  always  there 
when  you  want  them.  .  .  .  Unfortunately, 
before  we  can  love  the  Immortals  and  under- 
stand them,  we  must  have  some  experience 
of  the  Mortal. 

Those  who  have  substituted  emotions  of 
the  blood  for  emotions  of  the  soul  .  .  .  can 
never  understand  the  anguish  of  disappointed 
trust. 

A  sensitive  nature  dismayed  soon  becomes 
the  most  brutal,  because  its  brutality  is  de- 
liberate, and,  by  a  paradox,  intellectual. 

Many  good  people  speak  of  longing  for 
Heaven — when  the  time  comes  for  the  realisa- 
tion of  that  long  -  desired  change,  they  will 
order  prayers  offered  for  its  delay.  They 
believe  in  the  Heaven  or  they  would  not  order 
the  prayers,  but  there  is  in  this,  as  in  most 

101 


Life  and  To-morrow 


hopes  which  have  grown  habitual  at  some 
expense  to  their  intensity,  an  inadmissable 
preference  for  the  craving  rather  than  its 
appeasement. 

I  CARE  LESS  AND  LESS  for  what  a  person 
thinks  or  says  that  he  thinks.  When  I  was 
younger  I  wasted  much  speculation  on  what 
theologians  call  the  interior  life.  It  is  all 
trop  de  bruit  pour  une  omelette.  There  is  too 
much  fuss  about  motives,  scruples,  doubts, 
misunderstandings,  and  so  on.  Tell  me  what 
a  man  does,  and  I  will  tell  you  what  he  is. 
What  he  did  not  do,  or  intended  to  do,  is 
inconsiderable. 

However  precious  ...  a  sense  of  humour 
may  be,  it  is  a  question  whether  those  who 
possess  it  love  the  best  or  make  the  truest 
friends.  Terror  of  the  laugh  and  a  knowledge 
that  the  laugh  can  be  justified  is  often  a 
paralysing  misfortune,  oftener  still  a  restraint 
on  confidences,  but  oftenest  of  all  it  gives  an 
ironical  sting  to  sympathy. 

A  CONFIDENCE  SHOULD  NEVER  be  received 
either  as  a  surprise,  an  indiscretion,  an  apology, 
or  a  hostage.  It  is  something  understood  yet 
scarcely  heard,  something  miforgettable  yet 
too  little  our  own  to  be  trusted  even  to  the 
memory  ;   uttered,    it  must   be  as  though  it 

102 


Human  Nature 


had  never  been  told ;  at  each  rehearsing  it  must 
seem  mbre  distant  and  delicate. 

Instinct  in  choosing  a  confidant  and  the 
genius  for  self-revelation  are,  perhaps,  as  rare 
as  the  most  supreme  imaginative  faculties. 

There  are  very  few  men  that  can  bear 
authority  if  they  have  not  been  born  v^ith  the 
shoulders  for  it.  If  you  gave  a  man  a  nose 
who  had  never  had  one,  he  would  be  blowing 
it  all  day. 

The  individual  is  but  the  symbol  of  the 
great  mass,  and  the  history  of  a  country  is  but 
the  story,  on  the  heroic  measure,  of  any  one 
human  being.  And  just  as  a  country  on  the 
verge  of  war  will  wait,  with  enthusiasm  and 
closed  eyes,  for  the  unexpected  turn  of  affairs, 
some  miraculous  intervention,  some  awakening 
to  a  new  and  differently  ordered  universe,  .  .  . 
young  girls  smile  at  their  own  fears,  and,  try- 
ing not  to  think,  listen  only  to  the  mysterious 
beautiful  promises  of  passion  and  youth. 

Sympathy  is  the  one  emotion  which  seems 
most  perfect  as  it  becomes  most  animal  :  in 
its  human  aspect  it  too  often  lapses  into  the 
moralising  grandmother.  Animals  don't  ask 
questions  and  cannot  answer  back.  A  dog  can 
put  more  soul  into  a  look  than  a  kind  friend 
can  talk  in  an  hour. 

103 


Life  and  To-morrow 

One  cannot  bear  one*s  neighbour's  burdens — 
you  may  break  your  own  heart  out  of  sheer  pity, 
but  your  neighbour  will  not  be  a  whit  less 
oppressed.  .  .  .  This  is  not  denial  of  the  power 
in  sympathy,  counsel,  affection,  or  comrade- 
ship ;  the  power  of  such  gifts  is  incalculable, 
but  they  cannot  be  transmitted,  they  can  only 
be  exercised  for  the  neighbour's  benefit  and 
encouragement.  They  cannot  lessen  the  bur- 
den ;  they  cannot  affect  those  unuttered  and 
unutterable  thoughts  which  dart  through  the 
soul ;  those  hours  of  absolute  and  unreachable 
solitariness,  those  moods  when  no  one  really 
counts  and  nothing  really  matters.  ...  It  is 
useless  to  fume,  to  fuss,  to  clasp  and  unclasp 
one's  hands,  to  pace  the  floor,  to  knit  one's 
brows,  to  fret,  to  expostulate.  All  such  natural 
demonstrations  of  anxiety  ease  you,  no  doubt, 
but  they  do  not  ease  the  afflicted  neighbour. 
Your  own  burden,  by  force  of  pity,  may  grow 
to  resemble  his,  but  his  will  remain  unaltered — 
not  to  be  shared  or  lessened.  To  know  this, 
and  to  comprehend  it,  is  not  the  beginning  of 
egoism,  but  the  first  need  of  real  unselfishness — 
an  admission  of  one's  limitations. 


If  the  world  and  the  flesh  have  their  voices 
for  men,  so,  too,  the  stars  and  the  sea,  great 
mountains  and  towering  trees,  have  their 
haunting  call. 

104 


Human  Nature 


Sameness  of  thought  and  aspirations  pro- 
duce the  same  lines  on  the  human  countenance : 
the  same  prayers  produce  the  same  persistency 
in  the  hps :  the  same  faith  gives  the  same 
steadfastness  to  the  eyes  :  the  same  courage, 
drawn  from  the  same  source,  gives  the  same 
kind  of  self-possession. 

Tpie  spirit  invisible  wears  the  laurel  of 
mental  victories,  but  the  body  has  to  bear  the 
exhaustion,  the  scars,  and  the  soreness. 

To  RESERVED  NATURES  what  is  purchased  by 
prayers  is  dearly  bought. 

When  we  are  at  our  worst,  we  may  still 
make  amends.  A  man's  heart  wills  all,  hopes 
all,  dares  all. 

When  all  the  worldly  maxims  are  said, 
when  all  is  done,  the  love  between  mother 
and  child  is  real ;  children  do  not  care  whether 
one  is  looking  one's  best  or  one's  worst ; 
whether  one  is  young,  old,  pretty,  or  plain. 

It  was  a  little  soul,  but  the  smallest  birds 
may  rise — 'hough  imperceptibly — to  heights 
past  human  vision,  to  the  stars. 

Why  are  people  always  kind  to  each 
other — too  late  ? 

105 


VII 


LIFE 

I  have  watched  the  sea  change  from  blue — to  grey.  I  have  watched 
the  trees  change  from  green — to  grey  ;  I  have  seen  the  sky  rose-red  turn 
grey — as  ashes  ;  I  have  seen  the  scarlet  fields  fade  to  the  hue  of  dust ; 
all  things  grow  grey — life  itself. 

Life  is  not  what  we  find  it,  but  what  we  make  it. 


LIFE 


A  BULL-FIGHT  GAVE  me  the  one  straight 
reply  I  have  ever  received  to  my  questions 
about  Hfe.  To  begin  with,  the  bull  has  no 
chance.  We  all  know  that  he  has  to  die — 
no  matter  how  well  he  may  fight,  or  how 
many  men  or  how  many  horses  may  be 
killed.  Then  the  bull  himself  rarely  wants 
to  fight.  He  sees  the  people ;  he  hears  the 
shouting ;  he  wishes  only  to  return  to  his 
stall  and  to  his  fodder.  In  conclusion,  the 
braver  he  is  and  the  less  he  wishes  to 
injure  his  tormentors,  the  more  horribly  he 
is  tortured  and  yelled  at.  I  said  to  myself, 
as  I  looked  into  the  sickening  arena,  "  This 
is  the  life  of  man." 

Sometimes  it  seems  that  .  .  .  love  is  a  jest, 
that  life  and  death  are  alike  jests,  that  the 
world  itself  is  the  Creators  big  joke  with 
mankind.  Everything  is  so  grotesque,  so 
badly  rehearsed.  The  curtain  goes  up  too 
soon  and  comes  down  too  late ;  parts  are 
mumbled,    or    shouted,    or    gabbled,    or  left 

109 


Life  and  To-morrow 


unspoken  ;  cues  are  disregarded  ;  heroes  are 
knock-kneed,  and  heroines  have  thick  ankles  ; 
fools  make  mirth  with  such  a  solemn  air,  and 
the  wise  are  solemn  so  foolishly  ;  men  and 
women  seem  not  themselves,  but  their  carica- 
tures ;  it  is  all  wildly  comical,  farcical,  un- 
natural, and  inartistic.  The  only  sad  part  is 
that  one  aches  from  laughing  till  one  cries 
at  the  pain.    But  this,  too,  is  a  joke. 

The  two  things  in  life  which  are  really 
gratuitous  are  the  grace  of  God  and  one's 
pedigree !    The  rest  depends  upon  ourselves. 

One  cannot  cheat  Nature  ;  her  legislation 
for  drones  and  those  who  want  the  joy, 
without  the  woe,  of  living  is  terrible  in  its 
severity.  And  she  is  most  terrible  in  her 
laws  on  all  relations  between  the  sexes. 
If  one  could  drive  every  religious  prejudice 
out  of  the  world.  Nature,  with  her  cruelty 
unhallowed,  would  still  remain. 

Life  is  a  shell  full  of  false  appearances. 
If  you  crack  it  hard  it  breaks,  and  then 
there  is  nothing  but  an  unsavoury  mess  ! 

There  are  many  duties  and  difficulties  in 
life  :   there  is  but  one  obligation — courage. 

All  the  phenomena  of  nature  are  images 
110 


Life 


and  symbols  of  life.  We  hear  this  often, 
but  we  seldom  remember  it.  And  if  we  will 
think  of  each  other  as  stars  and  realise  that 
each  star  has  its  place,  we  may  get  to  see 
that  the  task  of  giving  peace  of  mind  to  the 
dissatisfied  and  health  to  the  diseased  must 
be  accomplished  through  the  education  of  the 
individual.  This  may  sound  laborious  and  for- 
bidding .  .  .  but  it  is  the  one  way  of  restor- 
ing confidence  to  the  neglected,  because  it  is 
the  one  way  of  admitting  that  each  one  of 
us  is  of  equal  importance  to  himself. 

In  public  life,  whether  one  joins  the 
Church,  the  Camp,  the  Senate,  or  the  Arts, 
the  trials  of  strength  and  courage  are  most 
severe  even  to  those  who,  in  material  circum- 
stances, at  any  rate,  are  favourites  of  fortune. 
Neither  influence  nor  riches  avail  much  in  the 
terrific  struggles  for  supremacy,  for  recognition, 
for  mere  fair  play  itself.  What  must  the  con- 
flict be  tiiGh  ror  tnoSS  vN^no,  with  slight  purses 
and  few  allies,  find  themselves  pitted  against 
the  powerful  of  the  earth?  Discouragement, 
in  weak  natures,  soon  turns  to  envy,  and  the 
spectacle  of  human  unkindness  has  driven 
many  a  reflective,  dehcate  soul  to  say  that 
the  companionship  of  his  fellow-men  is  un- 
lovely, not  to  be  admired,  and  difficult,  at 
times,  not  to  hate.  In  disgust  of  the  world— 
where  one  has  been  w^ounded,  or  where  one 

111 


Life  and  To-morrow 

has  wounded  others— (wounded  vanity  and 
remorse  are  alike  bitter  in  their  fruits), 
numbers,  with  a  sort  of  despairing  fatal- 
ism, retire  from  the  campaign,  cut  them- 
selves adrift  from  their  people  and  their 
country,  and,  having  failed  in  life,  court  death 
under  strange  skies  in  far-off  lands. 

Men  are  punished— by  the  law  and  other- 
wise— not  because  they  deserve  punishment, 
but  because  Nature  herself  makes  inexorable 
war  upon  her  failures.  Her  legislature  is  for 
the  robust  in  mind  and  body — one  or  the 
other  at  least — and  while  religions  preach 
benevolence,  patience,  charity,  long-suffering, 
we  know  that  strength  where  it  meets  weak- 
ness must  prevail,  and  industry,  no  matter  how 
wrongly  directed,  where  it  meets  half-hearted- 
ness,  no  matter  how  well-trained,  must  of 
necessity  conquer.  If  so-called  good  people  had 
tho   enpro'v.   the   nerve,  the  backbone  of  so- 

called  bad  people,  the  bad  would  be  trampled 
out  of  existence. 

The  laws  whose  "Hie  was  not  of  to-day 
or  yesterday"  are  the  tm-written  laws.  They 
keep  an  eternal  inflexibility— a  different  thing 
from  instability. 

I  THOUGHT  AT  ONE  TIME  that  chance  and 
mischance   ruled   the  world.    It  was   a  lazy, 

112 


Life 


stupefying  idea;  it  made  enthusiasm  ridiculous 
and  work  pitiful.  To  sit,  getting  shrewder  and 
leaner  and  more  grasping,  watching  for  one's 
chance,  as  it  is  called,  did  not  seem  worth 
while.  Fate  is  better.  It  comes — it  is  not  to 
be  snatched  as  it  passes  by.  You  may  be 
asleep— when  you  wake  up  you  find  it  wait- 
ing there  by  your  side.  You  may  be  half- 
dead — it  touches  you  and  you  live.  And  it 
is  not  a  fate  stolen  from  some  other ;  it 
is  your  very  own,  for  you  yourself  and  for 
no  one  else. 

You  MUST  SEE  life  by  the  light  of  your 
own  lamp.    Nobody  can  help  you  much. 

It  is  not  the  past  alone  which  has  its 
ghosts. 

I  CAN  SEE  the  world  as  it  is.  .  .  .  When  one 
is  ill  or  sentimental  one  hates  it,  because  it 
was  not  made  for  the  sick,  and  it  was  not 
created  as  a  playground  for  lovers.  One  may 
love— yes,  but  one  must  work.  .  .  .  There  is  a 
time  in  love — just  as  there  is  a  period  in 
life— when  it  seems  enough  in  itself.  It  is 
independent  of  circumstances  and  persons.  But 
that  time  soon  passes  !  As  you  learn  more,  you 
look  for  more. 


Pan  was  a  heathen  god,  who  could  guide 

113  H 


Life  and  To-morrow 


lost  travellers  and  calm  all  storms  by  the 
magic  of  his  flute.  ...  It  is  a  parable  of 
modern  life.  We  torment  ourselves  with  bore- 
dom and  scruples,  whereas  all  we  need  is  more 
music,  more  joy  !  We  must  listen  to  the  Flute 
of  Pan.  It  is  always  playing,  but  we  drown 
it  with  our  wretched  babble  of  philosophies, 
the  noise  of  machinery,  the  turmoil  of  money- 
making. 


114 


VIII 
SENTIMENT 

Men  cannot  be  happy  on  sentiment  alone. 


SENTIMENT 


Nature  is  not  so  easy  a  companion  as  false 
sentiment. 

It  is  to  me  quite  clear  that  if  the  majority 
of  healthy  persons  were  perpetually  unhappy, 
disappointed,  or  discontented,  the  whole  order 
of  living  would  have  to  change.  The  majority 
are,  on  the  whole,  disposed  to  think  that  all 
ends  well  that  ends  pretty  well.  It  may  be 
more  fastidious  to  stand  apart  and  complain  : 
it  may  show  a  higher  type  of  mind  (I  am  not 
so  sure  about  that — there  is  often  a  sinister  side 
to  much  sublime  thinking) :  it  is  certainly  not 
normal,  and  this  particular  world  is  emphati- 
cally for  the  normal  creature.  It  is  true,  all  the 
same,  that  the  most  corrupt  natures  have  a 
certain  longing  to  idealise  the  hideous,  and 
if  they  cannot  understand  the  best  idealism, 
they  will  take  it  in  cheap,  or  grotesque,  or  false 
forms.  Hence  the  success  of  so-called  vulgar 
sentimentality.  But  although  it  is  vulgar,  I  see 
that  it  is  a  veil:  its  intention  is  to  hide  the 
universal  misgivings  of  mankind. 

117 


Life  and  To-morrow 

Sentimentality  has  all  but  destroyed  the 
best  minds  and  the  best  bodies  of  the  race. 
Modern  life  is  a  limp  battle  between  the  rheto- 
ricians, the  mob,  and  the  money-changers.  My 
hope  is  to  see  a  washerwoman  and  a  school- 
master bolt,  with  great  passion,  to  the  North 
Pole.  This  would  do  more  for  humanity  than 
any  Nihilism,  any  Socialism,  any  literature  or 
art  conceivable  ! 

A  COURSE  OF  CONDUCT  based  on  sentimentality 
can  never  succeed.  No  amount  of  sentiment, 
for  instance,  will  make  water  shoot  out  flames 
or  fire  turn  to  ice.  Life  is  equally  rational. 
You  must  learn  natures,  and  not  expect  from 
any  what  they  have  not  got  to  give. 

RusKiN  .  .  .  HAS  INSISTED  on  the  beauty  of 
many  things  called  common,  and  the  sham 
refinement  of  those  who  shiver  at  the  least 
pleasing  features  of  human  existence.  This 
squeamishness  is  modern  and  morbid  ;  it  is  not 
romantic,  for,  whereas  so-called  romance  is  now 
worn  very  thin  and  touches  no  one  very  deeply, 
it  was,  in  a  more  rugged  age,  a  living,  in- 
spiring influence ;  and  the  squeamishness  is  not 
poetical,  because  poetry  was  nobler,  infinitely 
more  tender,  and  also  more  divine,  when 
manners  were  what  we  should  call  rough,  and 
conversation  was  what  we  might  complain  of 
as  coarse. 

118 


IX 


IDEALS 


Man  is  ever  miserly  with  his  illusions  :  if  to  gain  two  he  must  risk 
one,  he  shrinks  from  the  venture. 

He  could  not  desire  the  star  and  find  solace  in  the  glow-worm. 


IDEALS 


I  SEEM  TO  HAVE  SPENT  my  life  watching  ideal- 
ists fight  and  go  under.  The  ideals  remain : 
their  defenders  either  perish  or  lose  heart,  make 
compromises,  and  despise  themselves.  .  .  .  Three- 
fourths  of  the  world  think  too  little  and  the 
other  fourth  think  too  much.  They  all  have  to 
suffer,  however,  and  if  one  is  in  the  least  sensi- 
tive, it  is,  so  far  from  a  recreation,  a  severe 
misery  to  mix  with  people  who  dare  not  be  so 
natural  as  the  poor  and  obscure,  and  cannot  be 
so  simple  as  men  of  genius. 

There  is  an  old  Hindoo  proverb  :  "  Find  the 
flower  which  can  bloom  in  the  silence  that 
follows— not  that  which  precedes — the  storm." 
This  applies  perfectly  to  a  talent  or  a  vocation. 
If  the  mood  is  there,  in  spite  of  fatigue,  or  dis- 
couragement, or  other  claims — happiness  for 
that  matter — you  may  depend  that  it  is  the 
ruling  motive  of  your  life  and  not  to  be  van- 
quished. You  must  follow  the  bent  or  you  will 
suffer — suffer  till  you  die  of  it. 

121 


Life  and  To-morrow 


If  I  HAD  an  ideal  like  yours,  I  should 
either  stick  to  it  or  drop  it  altogether.  If  you 
consider  it  impossible,  you  are  a  fool  to  give  it  a 
second  thought,  and  if  it  is  possible,  you  are  a 
coward  if  you  accept  anything  less  I 

Individual  coxtextmext  depends  on  how 
little  you  ask  and  how  much  you  can  bear.  W^e 
have  days  when  we  know  that  contentment  is 
not  everything. 

So  MAXY  MEX  are  degraded  by  their  sj-m- 
pathies.  They  have  any  amount  of  aspirations 
and  would  Hke  to  fly,  but  they  have  not  the 
courage  to  fly  alone.  So  they  prefer  to  crawl- 
in  company. 

The  terrible  irony  of  life  is  the  incontest- 
able fact  that  we  cannot  exist  without  a  number 
of  intoxicating  illusions. 

Beware  of  w^orshippixg  false  images— that 
is  to  say,  the  image  of  what  is  false.  That  is 
an  idol  which  many  of  us  mistake  for  the  ideal. 
It  is  the  ideal  higher  than  Hf e,  the  ideal  created 
by  lying  sentiment,  which  has  produced  the 
hypocrite,  and  what  the  young  call  disillusion. 
.  .  .  Look  for  the  ideal  created  by  wisdom  and 
experience. 

Oxe  is  oftex  tormexted  between  the  beauty 
of  an  ideal  and  its  failure  as  a  working  principle 

122 


Ideals 


The  materialised  ideal  must  always  be  a 
disappointment.  .  .  .  Nothing  in  this  world 
was  made  to  realise  our  expectations  or  to 
satisfy  us. 

We  resent  disillusions  because  they  are 
humiliating. 

Those  who  can  be  disillusioned  have  no 
convictions.  Disillusion  is  the  failure  of  a  half- 
belief. 

Disillusions  all  come  from  within— from  the 
failure  of  some  dear  and  secret  hope.  The 
world  makes  no  promises  ;  we  only  dream  it 
does  ;  and  when  we  wake,  we  cry ! 

Every  Paradise  is  always  to  the  outsider  a 
''Fool's  Paradise,"— that  is  nothing,  but  when 
the  Peri  within  the  gates  begins  to  feel  that  all 
is  not  well  outside,  we  have  the  real  disillusion. 

It  is  something  resembling  happiness  to  be 
alone  in  the  turmoil  of  the  world  with  one 
unspoilt  illusion. 

Conversation  between  a  disillusioned  devotee 
and  an  enthusiastic  novice  is  always  difficult : 
the  disillusioned  fears  to  be  candid,  and  the 
enthusiastic  fears  nothing  :  one  has  not  learnt 
enough,  the  other  has  all  to  learn. 

123 


Life  and  To-morrow 

Beware  of  the  tyranny  of  a  false  ideal — 
an  ideal  based  on  an  unreal  knowledge  of  human 
nature.  It  will  sear  your  will  with  hot  iron  and 
melt  your  soul  like  wax  over  a  hot  flame. 

Reality  to  some  dreamers  is  a  pain  or  a 
disappointment  :  to  others  it  is  a  kind  of 
drunkenness  which  never  grows  sober. 

Where  can  the  disenchanted  go  ?  They  have 
lost  their  footing  in  the  real  world — they  have 
found  out  the  deceptions  of  the  unreal.  There 
is  no  place  for  them. 

If  you  once  begin  wandering  in  the  dream- 
world, you  may  forswear  it,  but  you  can  never 
forget  it. 

Put  the  thought  of  might-have-beens,  ought- 
to-have-beens  for  ever  out  of  your  calculations. 
There  are  no  might-have-beens.  There  is  what 
has  been,  what  is  ;  to  regret  lost  possibilities  and 
anticipate  probabilities  is  the  vice  of  dreamers. 

Realities  are  not  of  necessity  shocking  or 
crude  ;  and  in  the  use  of  the  word  realism  as  a 
term  of  reproach,  or  the  word  reality  when  we 
wish  to  signify  something  unpleasant,  if  not 
squalid,  we  are,  without  knowing  it,  confessing 
the  first  article  in  the  creed  of  Pessimism. 

What  is  the  matter  with  reality  ?  To  begin 
with,  is  it  not  the  name  given  by  dreamers  to 

124 


Ideals 


every  disappointment?  Say,  we  set  our  minds 
on  finding  a  rose-tree  in  a  turnip-field.  We  do 
not  find  it ;  we  lose  our  tempers ;  we  call  the 
turnip-field  a  reality;  and  we  cry  out  that  life 
is  a  deception.  But  .  .  .  there  is  nothing 
the  matter  with  the  turnip-field;  on  the  con- 
trary, it  has  its  own  attraction  and  its  own 
usefulness. 

The  modern  is  always  an  unwilling  slave 
to  sentiment:  if  he  find  himself  captivated  by 
a  romantic  love  or  a  sublime  ideal  he  accepts 
his  state  in  the  shamefaced  and  hopeless  cer- 
tainty that  his  common-sense  will  one  day  come 
to  the  rescue.  He  cannot  believe  that  what  he 
takes  for  beauty  will  always  be  so  fair,  or  that 
what  seems  good  for  the  moment  could  be 
inspiring  for  ever.  Satisfaction  only  makes 
him  restless  :  he  sighs  for  happiness,  and, 
having  found  it,  sighs  lest,  after  all,  it  should 
be  only  a  shadow  cast  by  his  own  desires. 

It  is  much  more  difficult  to  crush  one's 
poetry  than  to  crush  one  s  passions.  The  pas- 
sions are  more  or  less  physical,  they  depend 
on  many  material  conditions  or  accidents ;  but 
poetry,  ideals,  romance  and  the  like  depend  on 
the  spirit. 

Are  there  many  or  any  of  us,  nowadays, 
who  feel  that  there  are  certain  things  which 
we  must  do,  not  do,  or  perish  eternally? 

125 


Life  and  To-morrow 


A  WEAK  MAN  submits  to  destiny,  a  strong 
man  makes  his  own.  It  is  what  we  think  of 
ourselves  which  determines  our  fate.  If  I 
regard  myself  as  a  poor  creature,  I  shall,  no 
doubt,  act  the  part  of  a  poor  creature. 

The  greatest  leaders  have  been  men  of 
the  highest  imagination.  Shakespeare  and 
Milton  expressed  what  Elizabeth  and  Crom- 
well imagined. 

The  great  ruthless  public  has  never 
responded,  and  can  never  be  made  to  respond, 
to  ideas  which  contradict  its  education.  And 
here  we  come  to  the  root  of  the  matter.  The 
education  of  the  imaginative  faculties  and  the 
ideals  of  romance  have  been  taken  absolutely 
from  the  national  education  in  every  class. 
Imagination  is  now  confined  to  the  real 
believers  among  Roman  Catholics,  the  Jews, 
and  the  Orientals.  It  is  not  acuteness  or 
unscrupulousness  which  makes  the  commonest 
Jew  successful  in  business  :  it  is  his  power  of 
imagination — his  ability  to  foresee  the  develop- 
ment of  an  idea,  and  his  instinct  for  romance 
in  the  true  sense  of  the  word.  To  most  people 
the  word  romance  suggests  unreality,  shams, 
the  unpractical,  the  illogical,  the  fantastic,  the 
impossible.  To  the  sincere  Roman  Catholic,  the 
Jew,  and  the  Oriental  it  means  the  essence  of 
everything  that  is  worth  time,  or  money,  or 

126 


Ideals 


thought :  imagination  is  rightly  treated  as  one 
of  the  highest  intellectual  faculties,  and  it  is 
cultivated  by  the  Roman  Catholic,  Jewish,  and 
Oriental  systems  of  education  to  the  highest 
possible  pitch.  It  is  abused — everything  human 
is  abused — but  of  all  our  powers,  it  is  certainly 
the  one  which  distinguishes  us  as  human  beings 
from  the  brutes. 

Romance  will  add  a  magical  delight  to  the 
pleasures  of  existence,  but  for  the  burden  of  the 
day  one  needs  a  sobriety  of  thought  which 
would  ring  singularly  flat  in  a  love-lyric, 
which  is  certainly  opposed  to  those  emotions 
which  produce  what  is  commonly  regarded  as 
interesting  behaviour. 

As  A  PIECE  OF  ARCHITECTURE  will  assimilate, 
by  weathering,  to  the  visible  quality  of  rock 
and  cliff  surrounding  it,  and  so  become  a 
natural  feature  of  the  landscape,  a  mans 
constant  reading  will  transmute  and  colour 
his  ideals  although  it  may  not  govern  his 
actions.  For  this  reason  the  charge  of  hypo- 
crisy, or  a  want  of  humour,  is  inconsider- 
ately made  against  those  who  are,  by  confession, 
great  lovers  of  noble  poetry,  and,  by  their  deeds, 
disreputable  or  mean.  But,  to  continue  the 
comparison,  however  much  a  piece  of  archi- 
tecture may  grow,  by  the  effect  of  climate, 
to  resemble  externally  what  it  is  not,  it  will 

127 


Life  and  To-morrow 

be  found,  on  close  examination,  a  faithful 
tribute  to  its  first  vulgar  or  beautiful  design. 
The  design  remains  ;  and  a  man's  inherited 
nature  remains — a  thing  apart  from  his  soul, 
which,  suffering  all  the  shudderings  and  quiver- 
ings of  flight,  is  often  bound  immovably  to  some 
disabled  intelligence. 

There  is  nothing  modern  nor  uncommon 
in  this  especial  disposition  (which  shrinks  from 
anything  which  will  materialise  the  subtleties 
of  the  mind).  One  may  describe  it  as  ascetic, 
anaemic,  sentimental,  hysterical,  neurotic  ;  but 
the  men  and  women  who  possess  this  fragile 
organism  show,  as  a  rule,  powers  of  endur- 
ance and  a  strength  of  will  by  no  means 
characteristic  of  the  average  sanguine  and 
sensual  creature  who  eats,  drinks,  fights,  loves, 
and  does  his  best  in  a  world  which  he  calls  vile, 
yet  would  not  renounce  for  all  the  ecstasies  of 
Paradise. 

Renan,  who  was  himself  a  native  of  Brittany, 
has  said  that  all  the  Celtic  races  have  in  their 
hearts  an  eternal  source  of  folly  and  that  this 
very  malady  is  their  charm.  Love  is  with  them 
a  sentiment  rather  than  a  passion.  It  is  a 
spiritual  rapture — a  mental  thrill  which  wears 
away  and  kills  the  bodily  life.  It  bears  no 
resemblance  to  the  fire  and  fury  of  the  south. 
The  southern  lover  slays  his  rival,  slays  the 

128 


Ideals 


object  of  his  passion.  The  Breton's  sentiment 
slays  only  him  who  feels  it.  No  other  race  can 
show  so  many  deaths  from  love  :  suicide,  indeed, 
is  rare — they  perish  from  a  lingering  decline. 
One  sees  this  constantly  among  the  Breton  con- 
scripts. Unable  to  find  either  pleasure  or  f  orget- 
fulness  in  vulgar  and  bought  amours — they  sink 
under  some  indefinable  grief.  The  home-sick- 
ness is  but  an  appearance  :  the  truth  is  that 
love  with  them  is  inseparably  associated  with 
their  native  village,  its  steeple,  the  evening 
Angelus,  the  familiar  fields  and  lanes.  Their 
imagination  is  filled  with  a  desire  alike  beyond 
all  common  needs  and  ordinary  satisfactions. 
Idealism  in  all  its  degrees — the  pursuit  of  some 
moral  or  intellectual  end — often  wrong,  always 
disinterested — is  the  first  characteristic  of  the 
Celt.  Never  was  a  race  so  unfit  for  the  indus- 
trial arts  or  commerce.  A  noble  occupation  is 
in  their  eyes  that  by  which  one  gains  nothing — 
for  instance,  that  of  a  priest,  a  soldier,  or  a 
sailor,  that  of  a  true  aristocrat  who  cultivates 
his  land  according  to  the  tradition  of  his  ances- 
tors, that  of  a  magistrate,  that  of  a  scholar  who 
devotes  himself  to  the  acquisition  of  learning 
for  its  own  sake. 

Sometimes  the  soul  speaks  first,  sometimes 
the  senses  first  influence  a  life,  but  the  turn, 
soon  or  late,  must  inevitably  come  for  each, 
and  the  man  or  woman,  sick  of  materialism, 

129  I 


Life  and  To-morrow 

who  begins  to  suspect  that  the  unseen  world 
and  its  beauty  is  an  inheritance  more  lasting 
and  more  to  be  desired  than  all  the  vindictive 
joys  of  the  prison-house,  has  no  such  bitterness 
as  the  idealist  who  finds  himself  brought  into 
thrilling  touch  with  the  physical  loveliness,  the 
actual  enchantment,  the  undeniable  delight  of 
certain  things  in  life.  The  questions,  "  What 
have  I  missed?  What  have  I  lost?  What 
birthright  have  I  renounced?"  are  bound  to 
make  themselves  heard.  They  beat  upon  the 
heart  like  hail  upon  the  sand — and  fall  buried 
in  the  scars  they  cause.  Things  of  the  flesh  may 
and  do  become  dead  sea  fruit ;  but  things  of  the 
spirit  often  become  stale  and  meaningless  also. 
What  is  more  weary  than  a  tired  mind  ?  What 
joys  and  labours  are  more  exhausting  than 
those  of  the  intellect,  and  the  intellect  only  ? 
Does  an  idle  week  in  summer  ever  beget  more 
lassitude  or  such  disgust  of  life  as  a  month — 
alone  with  books — in  a  library  ?  Dissatisfaction 
and  satiety,  melancholy  and  fatigue  show  as 
plainly  in  the  pages  of  a  Kempis  as  they  do  in 
Schopenhauer,  as  they  do  in  Lucretius,  as  they 
do  in  St.  Bernard,  as  they  do  in  Montaigne,  in 
Marcus  Aurelius,  in  Dante,  in  St.  Teresa.  They 
are,  indeed,  the  ever-recurrent  cries  in  human 
feeling,  the  ever-recurrent  phases  in  human 
thought.  Uninterrupted  contentment  was  never 
yet  found  in  any  calling  or  state ;  the  saints 
were  haggard  with  combats ;    sleep,  the  most 

130 


Ideals 


reposeful  state  we  know,  has  its  fearful  sorrows, 
hideous  terrors,  pursuing  uncertainties.  .  .  . 
These  reflections,  common  enough  at  all  times 
.  .  .  are,  as  all  common  things,  overwhelming  at 
the  first  moment  of  their  complete  realisation. 

Work  !  .  .  .  oh,  to  escape  for  one  enchanted 
moment  into  that  undiscovered  country  whose 
sapphire  rivers  flow  through  gardens  of  oleander 
and  idleness,  and  where  the  willows  sigh  in  the 
scent-laden  winds ;  where  the  acacia  spreads 
her  delicate  lace  against  an  azure  sky ;  where 
light  is  the  betrothal  of  the  moon's  silver  and 
the  sun  s  gold.  There  to  lie  on  the  flower-sweet 
grass  and  watch  the  deathless  nymphs  dance 
a  perpetual  youth,  to  countless  time,  in  robes  of 
ever-varying  hue,  to  music  of  ever-changing 
harmony,  to  the  murmur  of  insects  and  the 
song  of  the  nightingale ;  to  drive  white  oxen 
down  the  long  avenues  of  ilex,  or  wander 
through  vineyards  where  the  air  would  be 
sleepy  like  wine  and  the  fragrance  heavy  with 
oblivion.  O  undiscovered  country !  Why  is 
it  so  easily  imagined?  Why  would  it  be  so 
impossible  to  live  there — and  be  happy? 

The  idealist  driven  into  squalid  actualities 
deserves  a  martyr  s  crown.  In  one  single  mis- 
fortune he  suffers  all  the  calamities  of  the 
human  race,  and  in  one  personal  horror  he  sees 
the  death,  emptiness,  and  corruption  of  all 
human  endeavours. 

131 


Life  and  To-morrow 


It  is  a  question  whether  that  mental  suffer- 
ing known  as  a  disillusion  is  so  ordinary  as  it 
is  frequently  held  to  be.  Vulgar,  selfish  minds 
are  still  the  rule  rather  than  the  exception  in 
the  human  race,  and  neither  vulgar  souls  nor 
selfish  souls  can  ever  know  what  it  is  to 
be  disappointed  in  a  sublime  belief.  For  to 
imagine  excellence  and  to  love  it — whether  it 
may  be  real,  as  it  often  is,  or  merely  supposed, 
as  it  can  be  sometimes — is  not  given  to  low 
understandings. 

So  MANY  OF  us  ,  .  .  have  noble  ideals,  and 
then,  because  we  cannot  see  them  realised 
immediately,  we  accept,  in  a  moment  of 
petulance,  the  lesser  thing.  There  is  a  king's 
daughter  for  each  one  of  us;  let  us  wed  her 
or  none  other.  And  so  with  every  aim  and 
hope  in  life.  We  should  do  nothing — we 
should  say  nothing — we  should  content  our- 
selves with  nothing  which  seems  to  fall  below 
the  highest  we  can  think  of.  Then,  if  we 
should  find  the  disappointment,  or  should 
we  be  deceived,  we  can  at  least  say — We 
took  thee,  best  and  dearest,  for  the  best  thou 
shouldst  have  been.  But  to  be  fooled,  knowing 
well  that  we  had  chosen  to  be  fooled — chosen 
the  false  in  mere  impatience  with  our  quest 
of  the  true— that  is  what  really  degrades  us— 
really  causes  despair. 

132 


X 


ART  AND  ARTISTS 


These  literary  and  artistic  people  are  very  dangerous.  You  never  find 
two  alike,  and  the  only  certain  thing  about  them  is  that  ultimately  they  will 
do  something  to  make  everybody  uncomfortable. 

There  are  no  triumphs  for  any  artist.  We  suffer  and  we  work — some- 
times we  are  able  to  please.  But  we  suffer  and  work  because  we  must ; 
whereas  we  please  by  the  merest  accident. 


\ 


ART  AND  ARTISTS 


Ah,  not  fob  me— to  learn  the  truth  by  dreaming, 
To  hear  the  cries  of  earth  in  melody. 
To  know  'tis  night  but  when  the  stars  are 
gleaming, — 

Ah,  not  for  me. 

Music  of  form  and  colour's  mystery, 
The  joy  of  fashioning  in  fairest  seeming 
Life's  dullest  clay  and  Winter's  barest  tree  ; 

To  count  the  years  as  moments— only  deeming 
That  truly  Time  which  makes  thy  Art  to  thee 
The  one  thing  needful  and  the  all-redeeming,— 
Ah,  not  for  me  ! 

Art  ...  is,  after  all,  humanity  purged  from 
meanness. 

Great  art  springs  from  great  convictions. 
Work  begun  with  a  note  of  interrogation  in  the 
mind  and  finished  with  the  sense  that  little  is 
true,  less  worth  while  or  worth  doing  at  all,  is 
essentially  weak.  There  can  be  no  vigour  in 
things  so  conceived  or  produced. 

135  . 


Life  and  To-morrow 


There  is  probably  one,  and  but  one, 
supremely  good  way  of  doing  anything.  The 
countless  ways  after  that  may  not  be  wholly 
despicable,  yet  they  must,  nevertheless,  fall  short 
of  excellence.  They  will  fail  at  the  very  point 
where  perfection,  being  present,  is  most  striking, 
and,  being  absent,  is  most  longed  for. 

Portraiture — whether  in  epic,  or  in  drama, 
or  in  prose,  or  in  verse,  or  on  canvas— is  a  way 
of  seeing. 

In  order  to  describe  life,  one  must  show,  not 
merely  a  knowledge  of  men  and  the  spirit  of 
criticism,  but  a  strong  sense  of  justice.  A  sense 
of  justice  is,  perhaps,  the  most  important  of  all, 
because  our  whole  attitude  toward  ourselves, 
each  other,  and  the  world  depends  wholly  on 
this  instinct  for  what  is  fair.  And  not  for  what 
is  fair  according  to  our  own  ideal  scale  of  things 
as  they  ought  to  be,  but  for  what  is  fair,  seeing 
that  things  are  as  they  are,  admitting  freely,  for 
instance,  that  fire  burns,  that  pain  hurts,  that 
happiness  is  worth  striving  for. 

It  comes  to  this,  that  while  we  may  all 
possess  sincerity,  and  we  must  all  possess  human 
nature,  it  is  for  the  artist  to  be  so  much  the 
master  of  his  nerves,  his  heart,  his  soul,  and 
his  mind,  that  he  can  translate  his  impressions 
exactly,  without  over-statement,  confusion,  or 

13G 


Art  and  Artists 


false  sentiment.  Every  work  of  art  is  the 
outcome  of  its  creator  s  personality. 

A  PEASANT  once  consulted  a  nerve  specialist 
about  his  son.  "  They  tell  me,"  said  he,  "  that 
my  son  has  Art.  What  is  an  artist?"  An 
artist,"  said  the  physician,  ''is  a  person  who 
thinks  more  than  there  is  to  think,  feels  more 
than  there  is  to  feel,  and  sees  more  than  there  is 
to  see."  The  peasant  clapped  his  hands.  "  We 
were  afraid,"  said  he,  ''that  he  was  only  a  bad 
boy ;  I  see  the  poor  little  soul  is  really  quite 
mad.  If  we  put  him  in  a  cage,  under  a  curtain, 
people  will  pay  us  to  look  at  him."  "  If  you 
keep  him  in  a  cage,"  said  the  doctor,  "  his  great 
gifts  will  perish.  You  must  give  him  over  to 
the  wisdom  of  Divine  Providence."  "  Oh  no," 
said  the  peasant,  firmly,  "  because  in  that  case 
he  will  leave  his  happy  home  and  go  to  Paris  ! " 

The  artist  brings  himself  to  his  task,  and,  as 
he  sees,  thinks,  feels,  and  fancies,  he  must  paint. 
The  full  mind  must,  of  necessity,  compose  full 
pictures.  .  .  .  Perhaps  most  of  us  know  the  story 
of  Albrecht  DUrer  going  to  a  fair  and  seeing  a 
blue  monkey.  He  hurried  home  and  immediately 
introduced  the  animal  into  a  sketch  he  was 
preparing  of  "The  Holy  Family."  This  seems 
to  me  eminently  characteristic  of  all  creative 
minds.  Every  blue  monkey  we  meet  must  go 
into  the  vision. 

137 


Life  and  To-morrow 


The  best  possible  training  for  artists  is  the 
reading  of  the  highest  kind  of  literature,  and 
the  best  training  for  writers  of  every  class  is  the 
study  of  the  so-called  decorative  arts. 

In  educating  the  artistic  temperament,  it 
must  be  given  strength  and  then  it  must  be 
given  liberty.  Not  license  —  not  more  liberty 
than  we  give  to  a  banker,  a  member  of  Parlia- 
ment, a  judge,  or  a  millionaire,  but  as  much. 
We  are  too  ready  to  provide  a  cage  for  our 
fine  intellects. 

Artists  and  poets  are  like  stars — they  belong 
to  no  land.  A  strictly  national  painter  or  a 
strictly  national  poet  is  bound  to  be  parochial — 
a  kind  of  village  pump.  And  you  may  write 
inscriptions  all  over  him,  and  build  monuments 
above  him,  but  he  remains  a  pump  by  a  local 
spring. 

No  MAN  ever  seemed  an  Immortal  to  the 
majority  around  him.  Genius  is  seldom  ingra- 
tiating, and  it  can  never  be  familiar. 

Poetry — and  most  of  all  amateur  poetry — 
stands  for  pain.  Every  line  of  it  spells  woe. 
Either  the  writer — or  those  living  with  the 
writer — could  tell  a  tale. 

What  rubbish  is  talked  about  the  artistic 
temperament — especially  by  the  idle  and  unpro- 

138 


Art  and  Artists 


ductive,  who  loaf  about,  mistaking  their  limp 
backbone  for  heavenly-mindedness. 

The  artistic  temperament  is  only  faithful 
for  the  purposes  of  local  colour— to  experience 
fidelity,  in  fact.  Then  the  next  step  is  to  gain 
some  insight  into  infidelity.  Unless  a  genius 
is  extremely  religious  she  is  foredoomed  to 
impropriety  !  .  .  .  They  are  all  different— with 
a  sameness.  I  have  known  thirty,  and  they 
were  all  pure-minded,  and  had,  at  least,  three 
husbands  and  an  episode  ! 

It  may  be  impossible  for  delicate  and  impres- 
sionable natures — and  all  artists  are  delicate  and 
impressionable— to  feel  satisfied  with  life  as 
they  see  it.  A  lively  scene  and  joyful  company 
are  embittering  to  a  mourning  or  distressed 
soul,  whereas  a  bleak  coast  and  rough  hills,  by 
offering  no  contrast,  make  sadness  more 
bearable.  On  the  other  hand,  one  is  often 
assailed,  in  a  beautiful  scene  with  charming 
companions,  by  the  thought  that  such  things 
cannot  last.  .  .  .  Such  moods  we  have  all 
experienced  in  more  or  less  degree.  But  this 
is  a  matter  of  egoism.  No  one  will  deny  the 
equality  of  each  man's  importance  to  himself, 
but  there  is  no  real  equality  in  fates,  and  we 
must  not  confuse  our  personal  moods  with 
the  general  condition  of  mankind  at  large. 

139 


Life  and  To-morrow 


Aetists,  as  a  class,  are  seldom  happy.  They 
have  intense  sensitiveness,  and,  in  comparison 
with  the  individuals  with  whom  they  may  be 
obliged  to  spend  their  days,  they  must  always 
seem  to  be  morbid,  fantastic,  unreasonable.  .  .  . 
On  the  other  hand,  of  course,  we  must  own 
that  not  every  one  that  is  hard  to  live  with  is 
of  necessity  an  artist.  .  .  .  He  may  not  be  an 
artist  merely  because  he  is  unhappy  at  home, 
or  because  he  is  easily  woimded  by  doubt,  or 
because  he  is  constitutionally  more  delicate  than 
his  relatives.  Certain  things  are  common  to  all 
mankind,  and  the  tendency,  in  various  degrees, 
to  down-heartedness.  love-sickness,  bad  temper, 
and  admiration  for  the  moon  does  not  involve, 
a  priori,  the  creative  impulse. 

Eapid  changes  of  MOOD,  disordered  views, 
and  an  irregular  life  are  characteristic  of  every 
artist  whose  work  is  a  self-conscious  form  of 
autobiograx3liy.  A  vision  so  constituted  that 
it  is  perpetually  directed  inward,  egoistically, 
and  never  outward,  symi^athetically,  tempts  its 
possessor  to  produce — at  every  sacrifice — a 
certain  amount  of  variety  in  his  own  soul. 
Everything  depends  then  on  the  quality  of  the 
soul. 

The  saints  were  always  i^rofoundly  happy. 
Let  me  tell  you  why.  The  state  of  the  saint 
is  one  of  dependence.    His  convictions,  there- 

140 


Art  and  Artists 

fore,  are  enduring  and  unclouded.  He  accepts 
his  trials  as  privileges  ;  he  loses  all  sense  of 
his  own  identity  ;  his  humanity  is  merged  in 
God  ;  his  ecstasies  lift  him  up  to  Heaven  and 
bring  him  down  to  a  transfigured  earth.  He 
has  been  bought  with  a  ransom,  and  he  is  the 
co-heir  with  Christ.  He  is  found  worthy  of 
suffering.  But  with  artists  all  is  different. 
The  saint  is  in  search  of  holiness.  The  artist 
thinks  chiefly  of  beauty.  Holiness  is  a  state 
of  mind— it  is  something  permanent.  Beauty, 
however,  mocks  one  half  the  time— it  may  be 
a  deception.  Anyhow,  one  cannot  define  it, 
or  keep  it,  or  even  satisfactorily  catch  it.  Our 
inspired  moments,  therefore,  alternate  with  a 
miserable  knowledge  of  our  individual  wretched- 
ness. We  learn  that  we  are  no  stronger  than 
our  individuality.  That  is  the  barrier  between 
us  and  our  visions.  The  saint  has  God  before 
his  eyes,  and  he  carries  Him  in  his  heart.  The 
artist  sees  only  himself  and  bears  only  the 
weight  of  his  own  incompetence. 

All  men  are  sensible  to  physical  charms, 
but  it  may  be  wondered  whether  artists,  more 
than  any  other  class  of  human  beings,  do  not 
fall  utterly  and  slavishly  under  the  spell  of  an 
appearance  which  inspires  them.  Beauty  is  to 
all  artists  as  vital  as  the  air  they  breathe,  and 
more  necessary,  for,  lacking  the  sight  of  it  in 
one  form  or  another,  they  lose  all  will  to  live. 

141 


Life  and  To-morrow 

The  soul's  beauty  and  moral  beauty  and  beauty 
of  intellect  may  interest  them,  but  bodily  beauty 
and  the  beauties  of  nature,  or  of  man  s  handi- 
craft, are  the  visible  gods  of  their  idolatry.  The 
artist  may  be  capricious,  and  he  is  rarely 
constant  except  to  a  type,  but  while  the  frenzy 
of  devotion  is  upon  him,  there  is  no  lover  so 
absorbed  in  his  illusion  or  so  desperate  in  his 
selfishness.  And  the  cause  of  this  lies  in  the 
fact  that,  while  the  fairest  of  women  is  to 
ordinary  men  no  more  than  the  fairest  of 
women,  she  is,  as  well,  to  an  artist,  the  essence 
of  his  art ;  and,  while  the  natural  beauties  of 
the  world  are  to  an  ordinary  man  no  more 
than  the  natural  beauties  of  the  world,  delight- 
ful in  their  way  and  proper  place,  they  are, 
to  the  artist,  the  things  on  which  his  happi- 
ness and  his  very  existence  depend.  If  no 
true  artist  could  ever  be  moved  to  take  the 
so-called  practical  view  of  life  (which  means 
the  mercenary  view)  either  in  his  marriage, 
or  in  his  loves,  or  in  his  work,  it  is  because 
the  practical  view  would  be  to  such  an  one  so 
far  from  advantageous  that  it  would  mean 
actual  destruction.  Men  of  artistic  genius  can- 
not marry  for  position  or  for  money  or  for  con- 
venience ;  they  cannot  love  as  they  ought  or 
even  as  they  might  be  expected  by  reasonable 
persons  to  love ;  they  cannot  work  with  an  eye 
on  the  market-place.  And  again,  what  may 
seem  desirable  and  beautiful  to  others  may  not 

142 


Art  and  Artists 


seem  either  to  an  artist;  and  what  an  artist 
may  find  overwhelming  in  its  loveliness  may 
easily  leave  normal  beings  cold— if  not 
depressed. 

A  FALSE  SUCCESS  made  by  the  good  humour 
of  outside  influences,  is  always  peaceful ;  a  real 
success  made  by  the  quahties  of  the  thing  in 
itself  is  always  a  declaration  of  war.  The  man 
whom  one  praises  with  one's  tongue  in  one's 
cheek  is  negligible ;  at  any  moment  one  can 
cease  praising,  and  he  must  collapse.  The  man 
who  continues  whether  he  be  praised  or 
blamed  is  a  mark  for  violent  and  unreasoning 
animosity;  not  because  he  is  hateful  as  an  in- 
dividual, but  because  he  represents  that  some- 
thing immortal  and  defiant  which  men  fear  in 
themselves  and  call  their  own  souls.  It  is  for 
artists  to  remind  humanity  of  the  unconquer- 
able and  to  assert  the  eternity  of  ideas.  Stone 
the  idealist— no  flint  can  reach  his  thoughts. 
Bury  the  dreamer — his  dreams  will  colour  the 
sky  above  his  grave.  Slay  the  cunning  player 
—his  melodies  have  mixed  themselves  with 
the  air,  and  the  winds  which  cannot  be  slain 
will  sing  out  his  music  for  ever  from  the  tree- 
tops.  Banish  the  prophet— his  prophecies, 
nevertheless,  will  come  to  pass  where  he 
uttered  them.  Imprison  the  philosopher— his 
philosophy  will  wander  freely  in  the  market- 
place.  It  is  natural  that  brute  force  and  brute 

143 


Life  and  To-morrow 


anger  should  be  roused  to  do  their  worst — at 
least,  against  the  disobedient,  inaccessible,  and 
unseen  energies  of  the  world  ;  what  is  it  but 
the  larger  spectacle  of  the  strife,  in  each  indi- 
vidual, between  the  flesh  and  the  spirit  ?  Men 
have  passionate  bodies  ;  women  have  passionate 
souls ;  artists  have  passionate  souls  and  bodies. 
No  wonder  they  are  misunderstood — or  can  it 
be  that  they  are  understood  too  well  ? 

No  MAN  IS  THE  BETTER  for  living  in  a  state 
of  perpetual  war  against  accepted  ideas.  He 
may  be  a  saint  or  a  prophet,  a  philosopher 
or  an  artist — and  the  truth  that  is  in  him 
must  be  uttered  whether  it  be  understood  or 
despised ;  but  just  so  far  as  he  encounters 
stupidity  or  injustice,  in  that  degree  the 
finest  possibilities  of  his  character  and  his 
work  must  suffer.  No  man  ever  did  a  work 
in  spite  of  persecution  that  he  might  not 
have  done  ten  times  better  if  he  had  been 
encouraged.  The  soul  which  becomes  feeble 
under  sympathy  is  not  a  soul  but  a  shadow 
cast  by  some  stronger  personality.  Withdraw 
the  persecution  and  the  shadow  is  no  more. 

HAVE  MY  DKEAMS  and  the  stars."  This  is 
the  strength  of  the  creative  mind  ;  it  has  faith 
in  faith — in  the  undemonstrable,  the  intangible, 
the  unattainable  ;  and  when  the  visible  proves 
a  deception,  the  artist  and   the  idealist  are 

144 


Art  and  Artists 

but  the  more  confirmed  in  their  passion  for 
thev  o?^'  Tu""  ^"'^  unrealities  because 
anTsc:i?eT'        ~  d^«%-ed 

The  world  rewards  the   beautiful  only 
inasmuch  as  it  flatters  the  senses,  and  the  sub 
lime  remams-so  far  as  the  general  taste  is 
concerned-altogether  without  response 

thrHr/™  i«  the  hardest  in 

the  world  for  a  woman-in  fact,  any  artistic 

^bour-hard,    ceaseless,    unsatisfying  labour 

steUr;::  ^^-^reward-th  - 

srrengtH  tor  more  work. 

The  man  op  letters  is  not  a  man  of  letters 
If  he  accepts  life  and  the  circumstance  of  hfe 
Lst  n  t  oTh"  prime 

and  to  clutch-or  die  in  failing  to  clutch- 
thmgs  not  as  they  are  buf  i.-  •  '^f"^'^^— 
would  have  them  imagination 

of^r'^r  ™  ""^'^  distinguished  writers 

earn  the  influence  of  ^cto^'Hu^  T^''^' 
Carlyle,  Disraeh,  Byron,  and  SuslSn  ""notTo 
mention  many  others.    In  the  case  of 'ThoLas 

K 


Life  and  To-morrow 

Hardy,  one  finds  other  spirits  at  work.  His 
English  style  is  purer  than   Mr.  Meredith's, 
and,  while  it  owes  much  of  its  weight  to  that 
philosophic    school  of  which,  perhaps,  George 
Eliot  was    the    most   popular   exponent,  he 
writes,  at  his  best,  rather  as  a  poet  than  a 
Spencerian  psychologist.  .  .  .  What  effect  have 
these  two  men   of  genius    produced   on  the 
younger  authors  of  their  generation?  George 
Meredith  has,  undoubtedly,  the  greater  num- 
ber of  so-called  imitators.    Men  who  do  not 
read  him  at  all  are  accused  of  imitating  him. 
This  may  be  due  to  the  fact  that  both  Meredith 
and  his  supposed  copyists  have  an  admiration 
for  Victor  Hugo.     Mr.  Hardy,  on  the  other 
hand,  being  an  observer  of  life  rather  than  a 
student    of  books,  has   a   smaller  following, 
and,  indeed,  unless  a  writer  ventures  to  intro- 
duce a  rustic  into  his   story,  he  need  never 
fear  any  accusation  of  catching  the  "Hardy 
trick." 

When  I  think  that  Almighty  God  was 
willing  to  come  down  from  Heaven,  and  sit 
anywhere,  in  order  to  tell  a  lot  of  vulgar 
people  the  most  perfect  little  stories  in  all 
creation— I  refer  to  the  Parables— I  own  that 
I  cannot  tolerate  the  gifted  beings  who  can 
only  bring  themselves  to  address  a  little  circle 
who  are  not,  by  the  by,  especially  anxious  to 
be  addressed. 

146 


Art  and  Artists 

Whenever  I  read  a  book  I  ask  myself 
the  question,  "How  ought  one  to  write  of 
human  beings?  In  an  idealistic  way  or  in  a 
natural  way  ? "  All  men  are  engaged  either 
on  this  side  or  that  ...  and  I  believe  I  have 
the  world  with  me  here  that  the  idealist  is 

•?  r  ^^P^^^"  ^hy-    Before  one  can 

Idealise  life  one  must  have  triumphed  over  it. 
The  Idea  ist  is  the  master  of  his  material, 
whereas  the  naturalist  must  ever  be  its  slave. 

Goethe  and  Victor  Hugo  have  tried  every- 
thing, but  Shakespeare  has  said  everything 
Humamty,  in  his  plays,  is  set  before  us  per- 
fectly and  more  delightfully  than  Nature.  He 
eliminates  the  lie  from  the  fact,  whereas  Nature 
IS  always  obliged  to  give  the  lie  as  well. 

T.ll  ™e/i™nth  century,   that  spleeny 
Luther  had  not  yet  jaundiced  all  the  poetry 
of  the  world    My  comfort  is  that  Shakespeare 
telt  the  malady  approaching  and  broke  the 
magic  staff,  and  drowned  the  book  of  inspira! 
tion  m  time.     Prospero's  abjuration  in  The 
J.»(there  is  a  tragedy  for  you!)-is  but 
a  sad  farewell  to  his  enthusiasm  _  to  that 
wisdom  which  Socrates  possessed  till  the  end 
and  called  a  dream,   which  we  would  fain 
possess  and  call  Romance.    In  our  days  enthu- 
siasm IS  regarded  as  the  virtue  of  dupes,  and 
distinguished    modern  writers   at  home  and 

147 


Life  and  To-morrow 

abroad  have  every  literary  gift  except  that 
essential  one.  You  may  call  it  by  another 
name,  if  you  like— piety.  ...  It  is  impossible 
for  an  impious— and  therefore  selfish- mind  to 
possess  that  genial  humour  which  is  inseparable 
from  a  sound  judgment,  or  to  understand  Irony, 
which,  as  you  will  admit,  makes  the  strength 
of  tragedy,  the  gaiety  of  comedy,  the  pathos 
of  life,  and  the  whole  business  of  metaphysics. 

Shakespeahe  never  dhaws  one-sided  figures, 
or  tells  a  story  with  its  back  to  the  light.  We 
have  the  whole  situation,  and  all  the  souls. 

In  Homer  the  characters  may  all  be  said 
to  speak  as  men  and  poets  ;  it  is  so  in  the 
Chanson  de  Roland  ;  it  is  so  in  Shakespeare  : 
in  the  Northern  classics  they  speak  as  men  only. 
The  Sagamen  have  a  cruelty,  a  harshness  which 
deprives  even  their  greatest  work  of  that  pro- 
perty which  we  imperfectly  describe  as  "  inspir- 
ing." It  leaves  us  cold  and  frightened.  It  is 
as  the  great  sea— restless,  mighty,  barren,  and 
unkind  ;  and,  owning  its  magnificence,  we  turn 
toward  the  warmth  and  sympathy,  the  beauty 
and  homehness,  the  infinite  variety  of  the  land, 
for  we  ourselves  are  of  its  dust— it  is  our  com- 
mon mother.  And  we  find  this  earthly  element 
in  the  Southern  and  Western  schools  alone.  .  .  • 
In  Homer  the  natural  and  the  supernatural 
are  as  much  one  and  the  same  as  in  the  Epic 

148 


Art  and  Artists 


of  Dante  or  the  Book  of  Tobias.  When  the 
supernatural  becomes  in  any  poet's  mind  a 
decoration,  not  an  essential,  he  ceases  to  be  in 
the  true  sense  a  poet.  He  may  be  a  careful 
craftsman,  but  he  will  remain  at  best  the  chief 
machine  among  his  own  mechanical  inventions. 
He  must  inevitably  fall  with  the  rest  of  those 
idols  which  St.  Paul  has  called  ''nothing  in  the 
world."  Now,  there  is  an  element  other  than 
natural  in  the  Sagas,  but  it  cannot  be  called 
supernatural,  still  less  romantic.  It  is  bar- 
barism, barbarism  of  an  impious,  ugly  kind. 
We  find  the  same  peculiarity,  educated  and 
mewed  up,  in  the  prose  dramas  of  Ibsen. 

Many  well-written  foreign  and  English 
novels  of  the  present  day  ...  so  far  from 
being  either  wise  or  useful,  add  industriously 
to  the  unhappiness  of  young  girls  and  women. 
I  say  girls  and  women  because  men  are  not  led 
away  by  misrepresentations  of  domestic  life 
and  social  facts  ;  they  have,  to  begin  with,  every 
opportunity  afforded  them  of  learning  the  truth, 
and,  just  as  they  are  more  direct  in  all  their 
actions  than  women,  they  are  clearer  in  their 
thoughts  —  when  they  have  them.  But  the 
average  man  is  not  thoughtful ;  ...  he  feels, 
and  that  is  enough  for  him.  It  is  seldom 
enough  for  the  average  modern  woman.  She 
broods  over  her  emotions,  cherishes  them, 
enjoys  them,   and,  far  too  often,  stimulates 

149 


Life  and  To-morrow 

them  artificially  by  feeding  them  on  unwhole- 
some literature.  Much  so-called  goody-goody 
literature  is  quite  poisonous,  and  many  respect- 
able tales  are  shocking  because  of  their 
imbecility.  A  book  may  be  unwholesome 
on  account  of  its  sickliness,  and  this  is  the 
pecuKar  fault  of  many  works  which  are 
regarded,  by  parents,  as  safe.  They  are  not 
safe ;  their  flimsy  pictures  of  love  and  marriage 
enervate  the  mind,  and,  where  it  should  be 
prepared  to  encounter  bravely  the  adversities 
of  life  and  its  disappointments,  it  is  soon 
made  unfit  for  everything  except  falsehoods, 
discontent,  and  chagrin. 

Singers  often  have  songs  transposed  from 
one  key  to  another,  and  the  unmusical  suppose 
that  this  radical  change  does  not  concern  the 
composer,  or  affect— beyond  the  pitch— a  song. 
But  pitch  may  be  called  the  soul  of  any  work 
of  art— whether  designed  for  the  orchestra, 
the  singer,  the  stage,  the  library,  or  the  picture 
gallery.  The  pitch,  in  fact,  is  the  first  question 
which  has  to  be  decided  before  an  imaginative 
or  rhetorical  work  can  be  carried  out :  it  is 
to  the  whole  what  the  ground  plan  is  to  the 
architect. 

No  great  painter,  with  the  possible  excep- 
tions of  Rubens,  Teniers,  Watteau,  and  Boucher, 
was  ever  especially  cheerful  as  we  understand 

150 


Art  and  Artists 

the  term.  No  poet  of  the  first  rank  was  ever 
what  is  commonly  known  as  bright.  Between 
a  morbid  pessimism,  however,  and  levity  there 
is  certainly  a  mean,  and  that  is  the  mean 
illustrated  in  the  works  of  Botticelli  and  Dante. 
How  could  any  person  who  felt,  who  saw,  who 
heard,  who  reflected,  maintain  a  smiling,  un- 
clouded countenance  ?  It  is  not  possible.  Hope 
and  Beauty  are  always  possible,  fortunately,  and 
the  two  elements  are  everywhere  present  in  the 
works  of  a  true  genius — no  matter  how  perse- 
cuted, misunderstood,  or  unhappy.  They  become 
tragic,  as  Shakespeare  became  tragic,  as  .  .  . 
Botticelli  became  tragic,  and  as  Dante,  from 
the  commencement,  was  invariably.  But  it  is 
a  sign  of  debility  in  any  reader  or  observer  if 
they  mistake  any  tragic  development  for  what 
we  are  so  fond  of  calling  at  the  present  time 
too  depressing  for  words.  Those  who  clamour 
for  a  cheerful  art  do  not  know  what  the  word 
Art  means.  The  great  thing  is  to  be  just,  and, 
so  long  as  the  work  is  kept  just  and  the  critic 
is  healthy,  sad  endings  and  a  right  apprecia- 
tion of  the  inexorable  justice  in  animate  and 
inanimate  nature  can  cast  no  gloom. 

Dante,  by  the  versatility  of  his  genius, 
anticipated  the  Renaissance  as  we  understand 
it.  .  .  .  He  was  altogether  in  advance  of  his  own 
time,  and  the  real  influence  of  his  mind  was  not 
felt  until  it  encountered  the  spirits  of  men  so 

151 


Life  and  To-morrow 


little  resembling  each  other  as  Boccaccio,  Michael 
Angelo,  Savonarola,  and  Botticelli.  It  was  not 
that  he  had  to  offer  either  a  religion  of  joy  or  a 
religion  of  suffering,  but  a  religion  of  the  heart. 
He  had  lived  and  loved,  and  hoped  and  despaired, 
and  failed,  apparently,  in  some  undertaking — 
succeeded  magnificently  in  others.  He  was 
human  before  all  things,  and  those  who  may 
have  found  his  scholarship  repulsive  heard  an 
irresistible  appeal  in  his  emotions. 

Botticelli  has  been  called  modern  and 
pessimistic — why,  I  cannot  imagine.  Joyous- 
ness,  in  the  reckless,  heedless,  and  unthinking 
sense,  was  never  yet  found  in  the  Italian  genius 
at  any  period.  I  believe  I  am  right  in  saying 
that  the  joy  of  living — where  it  may  be  said  to 
exist — and  the  amazing  rubbish  written  on  that 
theme  to-day  are  modern  affectations.  A 
creature  of  reflective  mind  could  neither  reflect 
nor  create  on  joyousness  alone.  A  bland,  smiling 
Madonna  could  be  executed  by  an  irreligious 
person  only — a  person,  indeed,  of  no  reverence. 
When  Botticelli,  therefore,  gave  his  Madonnas 
an  air,  in  some  cases,  of  extraordinary  suffering, 
he  was  not  pessimistic,  but  entirely  right.  He 
did  not  forget  the  sword  in  the  heart. 

She  began  to  strike  out  chords  which  he 
had  never  heard  before.  Then  they  broke,  like 
waves  within  waves,  into  melodies  and  counter- 

152 


\ 


Art  and  Artists 

melodies.    And,  as  he  listened,  he  thought  of 
meadows  where  lovely  flowers  grew,  and  of  sun- 
shiny orchards  ;  gardens  where  young  girls  were 
laughing,  chatting,  dancing,  pelting  each  other 
with  primrose  balls  in  the  moonlight;  knights  in 
armour  rushed  past  him  on  white  horses,  and  he 
met  Death,  who  was  grave,  with  folded  wings  ; 
and  he  met  Youth,  who  was  cross-gartered,  tall, 
and  comely,  who  sucked  an  orange  while  he 
read  his  lesson-book;  and  he  met  Love,  whose 
feet  were  white  and  spotless,  though  the  road 
was  black  with  mire,  and  whose  face  was  like 
the  dawn,  although  the  evening  was  come.  The 
wind— how  it  moaned  !    And  the  rain  never 
ceased  !  Mist,  darkness,  and  yet  a  choir  chanting 
in  the  distance  ;  the  odour  of  incense  and  the 
sweet  breath  of  pure  air  and  spring ;  the  little 
laugh  of  water  when  it  strikes  a  pebbly  shore ; 
the  trill  of  a  brook  running  through  fields  to  the 
sea;  the  sound  of  many  wings  in  the  air,  and 
then  .  .  .  singing: — 

"  Fear  no  more  the  heat  o'  the  sun, 
Nor  the  furious  winter's  rages; 
Thou  thy  worldly  task  hast  done, 

Home  art  gone,  and  ta'en  thy  wages. 
Golden  lads  and  girls  all  must, 
As  chimney-sweepers,  come  to  dust." 

The    artist's   life    is  —  unending  labour, 
supreme  desolation,  infinite  love. 


153 


1 


XI 

THE  DRAMA 

If  the  gods  have  no  sense  of  humour  they  must  weep  a  great  deal. 


THE  DRAMA 


The  theatre  in  England  is  a  sport-not  an 
art.  In  France  it  is  an  art,  but  .  .  .  it  embraces 
more  than  one  profession. 

Patrons  of  the  drama  may  be  divided 
roughly,  into  two  classes :  those-the  majority 
—who  want  sensational  incidents  as  effectively 
planned  as  may  be;  and  those  who  look  to  the 
stage  for  the  rapid  exposition  of  human  charac- 
ter.   .      In  France  ...  no   crude  realism  in 
the  dialogue  is  ever  tolerable  from  a  Hterary 
pomt  of  view,  and  the  balanced  phrases  of 
Maurice  Donnay,  H.   Lavedan,  Hervieu,  Her- 
mant  and  others  no  more  reproduce  the  inane 
slang  and  feeble,  illiterate  vocabulary  of  modern 
drawing-rooms  than  the  divine  verse  of  Shake- 
speare gives  us  the  everyday  conversation  of  the 
aristocracy  of  his  time.    An  artist  aims  at  the 
spirit  of  things.    He  deals  in  symbols  and  dia- 
grams.   He  18  not  a  shorthand  reporter  •  he 
does  not  hang  about  the  law-courts  in  quest  of 
the  right  word  "  and  "  the  real  thing."  No 
author  should  make  all  his  characters  speak  in 

157 


Life  and  To-morrow 


precisely  the  same  manner— the  literary  manner  ; 
—but,  just  as  every  portrait  painted  by  any 
artist  of  distinction  has  a  certain  family  resem- 
blance in  the  matter  of  treatment,  expression 
and  the  like,  so  each  character  in  the  play  of  a 
genuine  dramatist  has  the  peculiar  mould  of  its 
creator's  workshop.  .  .  .  Until  it  is  realised  that 
language,  no  less  than  music,  is  a  way  of  hear- 
ing, and  the  presentment  of  character  a  way  of 
seeing,  England  will  have  no  drama  which  it  can 
olfer  in  comparison  with  a  similar  branch  of  art 
on  the  Continent.  .  .  .  Among  the  many  dan- 
gers which  threaten  all  sincerity  in  modern 
English  work  is  c  .  .  the  identification  of  an 
artist  with  his  productions.    It  makes  the  most 
steadfast  a  little  timorous  of  ofPering  his  know- 
ledge to  the  public ;  and  in  place  of  science  we 
have  special  pleading,  instead  of  life  as  a  whole 
we  are  treated  with  apologies  for  its  accidents. 
A  sort  of  rickety  sentimentalism  broods  over 
the  growth  of  every  imaginative  work,  and, 
whether  the  theme  be,  as  a  poet  has  said,  "  the 
recovery  of  a  straggling  husband,"  or  the  pursuit 
of  an  inconstant  lover,  we  wait  in  vain  for  one 
moment  of  real  passion,  or,  in  default  of  it,  one 
note  of  ironical  sympathy. 

When  ^schylus  and  Sophocles  and  Euri- 
pides wrote  for  the  stage,  they  chose  plots  which 
had  outlived  criticism,  which  had  been  received 
for  generations.    Shakespeare,  Jonson,  Corneille, 

158 


The  Drama 

Racine,  Goethe,  and  Victor  Hugo  did  not  attempt 
to  invent  fresh  stories  and  make  them  reason- 
able. The  thing  is  not  to  be  done  in  the  time  at 
the  dramatist's  command.  ...  It  is  impossible 
to  make  a  moving  history  absolutely  clear  in 
(say)  four  scenes  of  (say)  thirty  minutes  dura- 
tion. A  bald  statement  of  facts  is  not  dramatic : 
it  leaves  no  opportunity  for  emotional  dialogue, 
and  emotional  dialogue  is,  before  all  things, 
what  people  wish  to  hear. 

There  was  never  at  any  former  time  in 
England  such  a  craving  for  beauty  in  all  its 
manifestations  as  there  is  at  present.  Beau- 
tiful language  is  seldom  heard,  and  few  authors 
now  have  the  power  of  writing  it;  but  beauty 
must  be  somewhere  in  our  plays ;  and,  in  order 
to  cover  the  poverty  of  the  dialogue,  our  greatest 
artists  are  asked  to  design  the  scenery,  and  the 
actors  are  clothed  in  raiment  more  dazzling 
than  the  most  extravagant  monarchs  have,  at 
their  gaudiest,  presumed  to  wear.  .  .  .  The  fact 
that  Shakespeare's  plays  were  given  without 
scenic  advantages  but  reminds  me  that  his  verse 
fills  the  imagination  with  such  glowing  images 
of  all  that  is  lovely  and  desirable  that  the  en- 
vironment in  which  it  is  spoken  is  of  little 
consequence. 

Dialogue  .  .  .  should  be  a  symbol  of  real 
conversation.  .  .  .  The  passions  are  better  ex- 

159 


Life  and  To-morrow 


pressed  in  poetry :  the  sentiments  in  prose.  .  .  . 
The  difference  between  Meredith's  touch  and 
Sheridan's  is  the  difference  between  Watteau 
and  Hogarth.  This  is  our  dialogue  at  its  best. 
At  its  worst,  it  is  a  mixture  of  false  sentiment 
and  tawdry  rhetoric.  And  yet  we  have  the 
happiest  tongue  in  the  world.  Greek  cannot 
be  more  simple,  Latin  is  not  more  stately,  no 
Frenchmen  have  been  wittier  than  our  epigram- 
matists, Italy  cannot  show  more  musical  love- 
songs.  But  our  young  critics  cry  for  the 
''convincing"  phrases  of  the  law-court  witness 
and  the  "inevitable"  conclusions  of  the  philo- 
sophical detective. 

There  are  at  present  in  England  three 
authors  who  write  dialogue  with  the  poet's 
feeling  for  rhythm.  Many  write  brightly,  some 
with  pathos,  some  with  wit,  some  with  erudi- 
tion ;  but  an  ear  has  been  unhappily  denied  to  a 
very  large  number.  We  have  sentences  beyond 
the  capacity  of  the  human  jaw  ;  we  have  phrases 
huddled  together.  We  have  long  tirades  with- 
out a  speck  of  colour,  an  image,  or  one  har- 
monious chord  from  beginning  to  end.  Speech 
should  be  musical,  and  dialogue  should  have  as 
much  beauty  as  blank  verse,  with  more  variety 
in  the  beat.  Shakespeare's  clowns  speak  ex- 
quisitely modulated  prose.  In  this  accomplish- 
ment the  French  and  Germans  stand  unrivalled. 
The  most  realistic  scenes  are  composed  with  as 

160 


The  Drama 


much  care  for  the  varied  balance,  the  proper 
emphasis,  and  the  euphonious  word,  as  those  of 
a  more  lyric  nature.  The  three  modern  English 
authors  to  whom  reference  has  been  made  are 
not  backward  in  their  command  of  this  most 
difficult  art.  But,  three  against  the  British 
nation— all  scribbling  ! 

Once  I  found  a  speech  in  prose— prose  so 
subtly  balanced,   harmonious  and  interesting 
that  it  seemed,   on  paper,   a  song.    But  no 
actor  or  actress,  though  they  spoke  with  the 
voice  of  angels,  could  make  it,  on  the  stage, 
even  tolerable.    It  was  too  long  in  one  bar, 
and  too  short  in  another  ;  it  dragged,  it  jumped, 
it  vexed  the  ear  and  stilled  the  brain ;  common 
rant  would  have  been  more  vivacious  ;  a  column 
recited  from  the  dictionary  could  not  have  been 
so  duU.^  Yet  the  speech  is  nevertheless  fine 
stuff;    it  is  nevertheless  interesting  in  sub- 
stance :    it  has  imagination  :    it  has  charm. 
What,   then,   was  lacking?    Emotion  in  the 
tone,  and,  on  the  part  of  the  writer,  considera- 
tion for  the  speaking  voice.    Stage  dialogue 
may  have  or  may  not  have  many  qualities, 
but  it  must  be  emotional.    It  rests  primarily 
on    feeling.     Wit,   philosophy,   moral  truths, 
poetic  language— all  these  count  as  nothing 
unless  there  is  feeling  of  an  obvious,  ordinary 
kind.    Great  passions  and  the  "  enormous  "  are, 
on  the  other  hand,  beyond  spectacular  repre- 

161  L 


Life  and  To-morrow 

sentation.    Love  is  probably  the  sole  great 
passion  which  an  audience  of  average  men 
and  women  can  endure  for  more  than  one  act 
and  to  a  tragic  issue.    Large  exhibitions  of 
ambition,  jealousy,  avarice,  revenge,  pride,  fear, 
and  the  like,  please  but  few  minds.    The  more 
emotions  conveyed,  or  hinted  at,  the  better,  no 
doubt,  yet  not  one  of  them,  with  the  soUtary 
exception  already  named,  should  be  raised  un- 
duly to  the  depression  of  the  others.  The 
theatre  is  a  place  of  relaxation.    When  the 
majority  of  pleasure-seekers  find  a  piece  tedious, 
it  is  a  failure  beyond  question  as  a  play.  When 
the  majority  find  a  piece  agreeable  to  their 
taste,  it  must  have  fulfilled,  at  all  events,  one 
vital  condition  of  its  existence  as  a  piece.    It  is 
at  least  an  entertainment.    The  vulgar,  much- 
abused  melodrama  has  this  unfailing  character- 
istic—it will  hold,  in  the  face  of  every  aesthetic 
objection,  your  cheerful  attention.  In  a  comedy, 
life  must  be  presented  in  a  deliberately  artificial 
way— that  is  to  say,  presented  under  strictly 
artificial  conditions.    No  one,  for  instance,  in 
looking  at  a  portrait  is  asked  to  mistake  it  for 
a  wax  model  or  a  real  personage.    In  admiring 
a  twelve-inch  landscape  we  do  not  blame  the 
artist  because  we  are  unable  to  scamper,  in 
reality,  over  his  fields  or  pluck  the  lilacs  in 
his  garden.    We  go  to  him  neither  for  a  decep- 
tion nor  an  imitation— but  for  an  idea,  an  illus- 
tration, or   a   statement.     Play-writing  and 

162 


The  Drama 


novel-writing  may  be  compared  in  more  senses 
than  one  with  the  art  of  landscape  painting. 
To  see  the  sun  set  once  is  not  enough,  to  see 
once  the  tide  come  in  is  not  enough,  to  have 
risen  once,  in  the  country,  to  watch  the  dawn  of 
day  is  not  enough.    One  must  be  so  intimate 
with  Nature  that  one  could  not— even  if  one 
tried— present  her,  or  any  aspect  of  her,  con- 
ventionally.   One  knows  nothing  unless  one 
knows  her  infinite  variety.    Describe  humbly 
what  you  see,  and  you  cannot  go  wrong;  de- 
scribe what  others  have  been  taught  to  see,  and 
you  can  never,  by  any  possibility,  be  right.  The 
instinct  of  a  close  student  of  life  is  always  to 
reject  the  plausible.    It  is  by  this  ready  accept- 
ance of  the  plausible  that  human  beings  are  so 
often,  and  unnecessarily,  disillusioned.    No  two 
creatures  are  precisely  or  even  within  any  real 
degree  of  approximation,  the  same  :  each  soul 
has  its  own  individuality.   There  may  be  schools 
of  people  just  as  there  are  schools  of  thought, 
but  Types— the  typical  stage  diplomatist,  the 
typical  young  girl,  the  typical  widow,  the  typical 
stage  foreigner,  the  Type,  in  fact,  of  any  sort- 
are  not  to  be  found  in  Almighty  God's  creation 
or  man's  society.    They  are  nothing  in  the 
world,  and  there  is  no  speculation  in  their  eyes. 

Many  Anglo-Saxon  writers  find  their  content 
and,  it  may  be,  their  compensation  for  existence, 
in  attacking  the  indehcate  subjects  of  Gallic 

163 


Life  and  To-morrow 

plays  and  novels.  It  cannot  be  insisted  on  too 
often  that  no  subject  is  in  itself  indelicate.  The 
treatment  is  all ;  and,  just  as  it  is  possible  to 
pollute  the  simplest  theme  by  gross  language,  a 
vicious  point  of  view,  or  a  cowardly  shirking  of 
the  great  sorrow  underlying  all  things,  so  it  is 
equally  possible  to  illuminate  a  theme,  in  its 
attributes  displeasing,  by  a  clear,  straight  vision 
and  a  conviction  of  the  dignity  of  mankmd. 

Laughter  there  may  be,  for  where  there 
is  no  laughter  it  may  be  said  there  is  no 
vitality. 

A  TRUE  BOOK  and  a  true  play  cannot  be 
otherwise  than  moral.  It  is  the  false  picture 
—no  matter  how  pretty— which  makes  for 
immorality. 

A  WELL-KNOWN  MODERN  French  critic  has  .  .  . 
said  that  the  difference  between  the  drama  of 
England  and  the  drama  of  other  nations  lies  in 
the  fact  that  the  Anglo-Saxon  public  wish  to 
hear  whether  Edwin  marries  Angelina,,  while 
Europeans  elsewhere  wish  to  know  the  moral 
effects  of  the  marrying,  or  the  not  marrying,  on 
the  souls  of  the  symbolic  pair.  ...  A  little 
group,  in  many  centuries,  have  succeeded  m 
hitting  artistic  perfection,  but  a  man  who  has 
the  courage  to  take  even  a  wisp  of  psychological 
truth  into  the  small  parlour  of  a  London 
theatrical  manager  is  a  man  who  is  by  no 

164 


The  Drama 

means  unconscious  that  he  is  writing  rather  to 
satisfy  his  own  sense  than  to  impress  those  who 
cast  respectful  glances  toward  the  agents  of 
trick-wrestlers  and  prodigious  children.  It  is 
wrong  to  maintain,  however,  that  the  English 
mind  is  not  given  to  introspection  or  the  analysis 
of  moral  crises.  It  analyses  without  method  and 
without  impartiality,  but  it  is  shrewd  enough  to 
be  fully  sentient  of  its  own  misery  or  its  own 
satisfaction. 

So  FAR  OUR  STRICTLY  NATIONAL  theatrical  art 
is  found  in   Gaiety  comedy  and  Drury  Lane 
melodrama — these  things  are  racy,  thoroughly 
English,  and  representative.    There  is  nothing 
in   the  least  resembling  them  elsewhere.  .  .  . 
But  when  we  turn  to  the  drama  proper  we  find 
writers  and  players  alike  bound  down  by  the 
fantastic  notions  of  what  will  or  what  will  not 
carry  across  the  footlights.     I  maintain  that 
sincerity  will  carry  anywhere.  .  .  .  There  are 
two  ways  of  being  simple  :  one  can  be  true  to 
life  or  true  to  art.    Sometimes  it  is  possible  to 
be  true  to  both,  and  then  we  get  the  triumph  of 
an  actor  or  of  an  author,  but  such  triumphs 
occur  but  seldom  in  the  course  of  a  whole 
century.  .  .  .  But  ...  the    good,  workable, 
straightforward  plays  about  people  as  they  are, 
or,  if  we  are  inclined  to  romance,  people  as  they 
would  wish  to  be  if  all  things  were  equal  .  .  . 
these  can,  at  least,  be  true  to  life.    Let  us  give 

165 


Life  and  To-morrow 


Art  a  rest  for  a  little.  I  think  Art  can  take 
care  of  herself.  I  have  always  thought  so.  She 
never  came  to  any  one  for  the  asking,  and  in  all 
her  ways  she  is  as  capricious  as  Fortune.  In  .  .  . 
attention  to  life  and  the  observation  of  humanity, 
as  opposed  to  the  study  of  defunct  canons  of 
stage  craft,  and  obsolete  sham  heroics,  I  see  all 
the  hope  for  the  British  drama. 

Vulgarity  has  a  positive  imperishable 
charm;  it  is  sham  nobihty  that  is  revolting. 
And  sham  nobility  is  the  disease  of  our  heroes 
and  heroines  in  serious  drama  or  fiction.  They 
cry,  they  faint,  they  moan,  they  justify  them- 
selves at  length  ;  they  are  artfully  driven  by 
their  author  into  dilemmas  w^hich  a  funny*' 
character  would  gf^t  out  of  without  a  single 
tirade  or  an  attitude— far  less  a  "  curtain."  But 
the  need  of  nobility  is  in  their  wires  ;  they  must, 
by  some  means,  be  "  noble " ;  they  must  excite 
pity  and  terror  for  their  fate— a  fate,  which, 
given  to  the  secondary  lovers,  w^ould  provoke 
exhilarating  amusement.  .  .  .  x^n  action  cannot 
be  dignified,  or  be  made  to  seem  so,  unless  its 
acknowledged  responsibilities  are  great— great 
for  good  or  great  for  woe.  All  the  tall  talk 
from  classic  sources  w^ill  count  for  nothing — 
except  transparent  and  fatuous  hypocrisy— if 
the  thought,  underlying  the  deed,  be  squalid  or 
petty. 

NoAV  ...  NO  ONE  CAN  ACT  the  jcune  premier 
lOG 


The  Drama 

because  the  jeune  premier  no  longer  exists  in 
society.  .  .  .  An  actor  is  mimetic — he  cannot 
imitate  unless  he  has  some  model.  A  play- 
wright cannot  please  his  audience  by  drawing 
a  type  which  has  ceased  to  exist.  The  race  of 
romantic  lovers  is  dead.  .  .  .  In  .  .  .  Octave 
Feuillet's  ''Romance  of  a  Poor  Young  Man"  .  .  . 
''Better  death  than  dishonour!"  exclaims  the 
hero,  leaping  from  a  high  tower  in  order  to 
avoid  compromising  a  lady  who  by  accident  had 
been  locked  with  him  in  an  isolated  room  of  a 
lonely  ruin.  Nowadays  the  two  would  have 
played  bridge,  smoked,  and  waited  till  dawn,  or 
the  arrival  of  a  search  party :  the  lady  might 
have  been  a  little  compromised,  but  the  young 
gentleman,  in  any  event,  would  not  have  cared 
in  the  least.  .  .  .  The  jeune  premier  .  .  .  was 
exalted,  he  was  fond  of  rhetoric,  and  he  lived, 
as  it  were,  rhetorically  :  he  tossed  his  hair  about, 
he  enjoyed  a  good  gesture,  and  he  would  only 
abandon  one  noble  attitude  by  assuming  another ; 
but  he  had  a  warm,  generous  heart,  and  he  could 
send  his  kind  soul  into  worlds  elsewhere  at  a 
moment's  notice.  He  loved  with  all  his  might, 
and  the  sterner  the  parent,  the  harder  the  fate, 
the  crueller  his  adversities,  the  more  he  loved, 
and  the  more  beautifully  he  expressed  his 
emotions  in  a  voice  which  grew  stronger  and 
more  melodious  as  his  cares  became  more 
squalid  and  depressing.  An  attic  enchanted 
him ;  debts  aroused  him  to  enthusiasm ;  duns 

167 


Life  and  To-morrow 


inspired  his  best  utterances  ;  shabby  raiment 
made  his  countenance  the  more  striking.  He 
was  a  splendid  creature :  they  have  taken 
him  away,  and  they  have  given  us  nothing  in 
exchange. 

There  is  nothing  to  be  said  against  rhetoric 
on  principle.  We  have  all  met  born  rhetoricians, 
just  as  there  are  born  sentimentalists,  but  the 
best  rhetoric  ever  written  loses  its  point  unless 
it  is  plentifully  punctuated  by  pauses.  Often 
a  speech  which  is  not  in  itself  outrageous  is 
made  to  seem  so  because  the  actor  hurries 
through  it  as  though  he  were  speaking  faster 
than  he  thought,  and  then  we  get  .  .  .  the  comic 
note.  Each  utterance  should  seem  to  be  the 
result  of  some  experience ;  it  should  be  con- 
nected with  some  earlier  line  of  a  scene  in  the 
play,  or  it  should  itself  be  leading  up  to  some 
further  development ;  the  whole  essence,  in  fact, 
of  composition  turns  upon  this.  ...  I  am  fully 
alive  to  the  difficulties  of  the  playwright.  If  he 
decides  to  be  serious,  he  is  expected  to  be  more 
serious  than  life  itself.  He  has  to  conceal  his 
humour,  that  decent  gaiety  which  underlies 
existence  always.  And  I  maintain  that  if  you 
do  not  give  that  decent  gaiety  in  the  dialogue  or 
the  demeanour  of  the  players,  you  will  get  a 
scornful  gaiety  in  the  audience.  The  common 
sense  of  humanity — perhaps  I  should  say,  the 
common  wisdom  of  the  pit — will  assert  itself. 

168 


XII 


CRITICISM 

Up,  up,  .  .  , 

Thou  hast  a  flight  to  fly  past  barbed 


CRITICISM 


The  critic  must  have,  above  all  things,  ex- 
perience and  insight,  and  a  thorough  familiarity 
with  the  technique  of  the  actual  art  under 
consideration.  The  "  I-like-it,"  or  "  I-don't- 
like-it"  method  of  approaching  other  men's 
work  may  provide  readers  with  amusing 
occasional  articles,  but  they  are  not  criticism. 
We  all  know  that  Sainte-Beuve,  in  France, 
and  Matthew  Arnold,  in  England — to  mention 
two  critics  with  whom  other  critics  have 
differed,  but  whose  rare  gifts  have  never  been 
questioned — would  not  write  of  any  work  unless 
they  could  give  the  best  which  they  themselves 
possessed  to  the  task.  There  is  no  reason  in  the 
world  why  the  critic  should  always  be  right. 
There  is  equally  no  reason  why  he  should 
always  be  wrong,  but  that  he  should  be  careful 
and  highly-trained  are  qualifications  he  may 
not  lack. 

As  IT  IS  IMPOSSIBLE  to  imagine  sound  govern- 
ment without  some  system  of  rewards  and 
punishments,  so  is  it  hard  to  believe  that  the 

171 


Life  and  To-morrow 

arts  would  flourish  if  there  were  no  critics 
to  make  tradition  and  no  scholars  to  defend 
it  when  made.  It  is  true  that  all  the  criticism 
of  the  ages  has  failed  to  call  forth  another 
Odyssey  or  a  second  Agamemnon^  but  it  is  also 
true  that  the  creative  and  imitative  faculties 
have  failed  in  precisely  the  like  regard.  To 
write  divinely — either  of  hell  or  Olympus,  of 
enchantresses  or  wives,  of  love  or  of  death,  of 
life  or  of  sorrow,  we  must  be  able  to  say  with 
Phemius,  the  minstrel :  "  I  am  self  taught,  but 
God  has  put  into  my  heart  all  kinds  of  songs." 
Criticism,  however,  takes  rank  with  jurispru- 
dence. It  has  a  science  and  philosophy  wholly 
independent  of  the  song  in  the  heart,"  the 
passing  fit  of  sickness,  or  the  temporary  mood 
of  enthusiasm  in  its  professor.  There  is  a 
saying  that  the  best  prophet  is  the  best  guesser. 
This  engaging  rule  does  not  apply  to  critics. 
A  critic  must  be,  before  all  things,  a  reader  of 
books  and  hearts.  "  Personality  " — which  is  an 
easier  thing  to  acquire  than  erudition — ^may 
lend  and  has  lent — in  certain  instances — a  grace 
to  appreciations  "  and  an  excuse  to  ignorance, 
for  there  is  among  the  English-speaking  races 
a  gloomy  tradition  that  mere  scholarship  is 
born  of  the  dead  languages,  and  begins  life, 
as  it  were,  a  mummy.  The  great  Dr.  Bentley 
ventured  to  write  of  scholarly  matters  in  such 
racy,  familiar,  inelegant  and  readable  phrases, 
that,  while  he  delights  the  first  Grecian  of  our 

172 


Criticism 


own  time,  there  were  once  many  who  found — 
there  are  many  now  who  would  find — his  "  ways 
of  speech"  both  "mean  and  low."  Learning, 
according  to  the  Anglo-Saxon,  ought  to  be 
dull.  One  has  heard  of  the  accomplished 
essayist  who  classified  Homer,  Milton,  and 
Voltaire  among  the  Epicureans  because  they 
wrote  epics.  She  was  reproached  by  an  obscure 
Fellow  of  Balliol  for  whom  the  publishers  had 
no  sort  of  use.  The  superior  and  more  illus- 
trious person  whom  he  had  ventured  to  correct 
surveyed  him  with  contempt,  saying :  "  I  thank 
God  that  I  have  some  imagination !  "  And  she 
went  home  to  resume  her  monumental  work — 
Paul  de  Kock:  an  Appraisement. 

No  CRITIC  LACKING  ...  a  sense  of  humour 
is  to  be  trusted. 


173 


XIII 

COUNTRY  LIFE 


To  watch  the  world  from  such  a  corner  ...  one  would  swear  it  was 
all  virtue. 


COUNTRY  LIFE 

Imaginative  minds,  or  minds  warped  by  the 
perpetual  striving  in  the  meanest  ways  against 
the  meanest  difficulties,  regard  many  tempta- 
tions aa  a  decided  privilege— a  distinction. 
Money  gambled  away  on  the  Stock  Exchange 
and  the  merry  women  of  great  cities,  or  the 
credit  given  to  well-known  people,  and  the 
opportunities  squandered  on  those  who  appear 
to  have  already  more  than  they  can  regard, 
fill  the  provincial  heart,  too  often  crushed,' 
slighted  and  misunderstood,  with  a  rage  which 
is  not  always  impotent. 

There  is  no  loving-kindness  even  in  the  best 
of  provincial  Christians  for  ill-behaved  members 
of  the  aristocracy;  there  is  rather  a  fierce 
consuming  wrath  and  a  desire  for  swift  ven- 
geance. Revolution  and  the  democratic  spirit 
m  England  come,  not  as  they  do  elsewhere  in 
Europe,  from  the  common  people,  but  from  the 
solid  wage-paying  and  wage-inheriting  of  the 
nation. 

In  that  part  of  the  world  no  lady  was  ever 
177  M 


Life  and  To-morrow 

expected  to  be  quite  prepared,  so  far  as  her 
own  raiment  was  in  question,  to  receive  sudden 
callers.   Rooms  were  supposed  to  be  swept  and 
garnished— that  was  the  infallible  sign  of  good 
management-but  a  housewife  who  was  always 
found  spick  and  span  in  her  best  gown,  and 
did  not  have  to  keep  visitors  waitmg  while 
she  dressed  in  order  to  receive  them,  would 
have  created  a  bad  impression.    In  the  first 
place,  she  would  have  the  air  of  one  who  looked 
to  find  the  whole  neighbourhood  on  her  door- 
step-an    arrogant    assumption  ;  secondly  it 
would  point  to  extravagance,  vanity  and  wiltul 
pride.     Nevertheless,   after    one    had  waited 
twenty  minutes  or  so  for  the  mistress  of  the 
house,  it  was  right  to  pretend  by  one's  air 
that  she  had  been  detained  for  every  possible 
reason  except  that  of  dressing  for  the  occasion. 
One  had  to  look  as  though  she  had  break- 
fasted at  eight  that  morning  in  black  silk 
trimmed  with  bugles.     Such    is    the  actual 
hypocrisy    of    social    etiquette   when    it  is 
analysed. 

Oh  those  long  days  in  the  country— days  of 
anxiety  without  distraction,  of  patient  waiting 
for  letters-no  matter  from  whom-which  never 
come,  days  of  trivial  necessary  tasks  impossible 
to  shirk,  yet  so  wearisome  in  their  accomplish- 
ment dlys  when  life  can  promise  neither  love, 
nor  youth,  nor  joy,  nor  even  death-when  the 

178 


Country  Life 

world  seems  a  mighty  grind-mill  where  slaves 
eternally  toil  without  rest  and  without  hire. 

Tattle  over  an  obscure  tea-table  has  all 
the  essential  vitality,  if  not  the  mighty  events, 
of  some  secret  murmuring  among  the  powerful. 
In  the  one  case  a  humble  career,  in  the  other 
a  whole  nation,  may  be  in  the  balance,  but  in 
both  instances  the  world— the  discerning,  un- 
sparing, remorseless  world— manifests  its  spirit. 
It  is,  moreover,  the  one  prophet  who  works, 
it  would  seem,  with  ingenious  energy,  to  make 
adverse  predictions  come  to  pass. 

Dwellings  closely  packed  together  destroy, 
or  disturb,  the  finer  visions  of  the  grandeur, 
sternness,  and  depth  of  life.    At  Oatesby,  the 
solitude  and  the  waves  exercised  their  power 
over    the    spirit,  diverting    it    from  trivial 
speculations  to  awe  and  wonder.    There,  where 
the  unseen  could  move  freely  and  the  invisible 
manifest   itself  on   the    perpetual  rocks,  the 
towering  trees,  the  still  green  fields,  and  the  vast 
acres  of  the  sea,  one  could  hear  the  dream- 
ing  prophet  proclaim    the    burden    of  the 
Lord  ;  and  the  voice  of  mirth  and  the  voice 
of  gladness,  the  voice  of  the  bridegroom  and 
the  voice  of   the    bride,   the    sound   of  the 
mill-stones  and  the  light  of  the  candle  mattered 
not.    But  the  kingdom  of  all  the  worlds— the 
worlds  and  habitations  not  made  with  hands— 

179 


Life  and  To-morrow 

rose  up  as  the  real  theatre  of  man's  destiny  and 
the  fit  measure  of  his  achievements.  It  is  that 
sense  of  the  eternity  of  consequences— and  that 
sense  only— which  can  satisfy  the  human  heart. 
Time  is  too  short,  this  planet  is  too  small,  and 
this  mortal  body  is  too  weak  for  the  surging 
thoughts,  the  unintelligible  desires  of  the  soul. 
Nothing  less  than  infinity  can  hallow  emotions  : 
their  passingness— which  seems  the  rule  in  the 
fever  and  turmoil  of  city  life— is  not  their 
abatement  but  their  degradation.  Change  they 
must,  but  perish  utterly  they  may  not. 


180 


XIV 
SOCIETY 


Of  course,  entertainment  for  entertainment's  sake  is  the  most  expensive 
form  of  death,  and  perhaps  .  .  .  vulgar  ! 


i 


SOCIETY 


It  is  one  thing  to  cherish  your  ideals  in 
soKtude ;  it  is  quite  another  thing  to  keep  even 
one  of  them  in  the  turmoil  and  twaddle  of 
society. 

Don't  you  ever  feel  there  is  something 
lacking  in  these  big  parties  ?  Do  you  never  get 
tired  of  these  smart  friends — friends  who  would 
tear  your  soul  to  ribbons  if  it  would  make  a 
lunch  more  lively?  Do  you  always  like  these 
brutal  jokes — this  hateful  scramble  to  go  one 
better  and  be,  at  any  cost,  amused? 

Why  waste  one's  time  hearing  ten  times  a 
day,  in  ten  different  drawing-rooms,  the  same 
jargon,  the  same  empty,  feverish  talk,  the  same 
phrases — repeated  till  they  lose  all  significance 
— the  same  judgments,  with  nothing  spon- 
taneous, nothing  natural,  nothing  genuine  to 
relieve  the  artificiality.  .  .  .  Nothing  less  than  a 
shock  to  their  supposed  refinement  can  make 
some  people  live  at  all.    They  are  like  smooth, 

183 


Life  and  To-morrow 


panting  animals  at  a  cattle  show— almost  dead 
from  excess  of  well-being ! 

Society  itself  does  not  practise  any  of  the 
virtues  which  it  demands  from  the  individual. 
It  ridicules  the  highest  motives,  and  degrades 
the  most  heroic  achievements.  It  is  fed  with 
emotions  and  spectacles  :  it  cries,  laughs,  and 
condemns  without  knowledge  and  without 
enthusiasm. 

There  are  certain  things  of  love,  of 
nobility,  of  temperament,  of  pride,  in  certain 
lives  which  the  world  at  large  would  rather 
calumniate  than  comprehend. 

To  FLIRT  WITH  SPIRIT,  One  must  be  either  too 
young  to  think  or  too  wise  to  trust  oneself  to 
think. 

The  genius  of  hospitality  consists  not  so 
much  in  making  people  meet,  but  in  helping 
them  to  part — on  good  terms. 

Etiquette — that  cardboard  goddess  of  peace. 

People  go  into  society  to  meet  the  people 
whom  they  wish  to  meet ;  if  they  don't  meet 
them,  they  call  it  hollow  ! 


Society  is  run  by  women  for  women  ;  that 
184 


Society 

18  Why,  once  there,  they  fall  easy  victims  to 
every  danger.  .  .  .  The  Stage  is  Paradise  in 
comparison— because  actresses  really  work  for 
their  living,  and  work  always  gives  a  redeeming 
touch  even  to  the  weakest  characters.  Art,  too, 
IS  democratic  in  the  sense  that  religion  is 
democratic-whereas  fashionable  society  must 
be  plutocratic  or  it  ceases  to  be  fashionable. 

The  people  who  make  me  nervous  are  in- 
the-way  people.  ...  By  in-the-way  people,  I 
mean  people  who  are  quite  intelligent-even 
sharp,  but  on  a  mean  scale.    They  have  never 
become  the  best  thing  they  can  be.    They  are 
middle-class-not  by  birth,  but  in  their  intellect. 
Is  any  one  more  tiresome  than  a  middle-class 
duchess  ?  .  .  .  Her  family  goes  back  to  the  Picts 
and  bcots;  her  mind  is  not  yet  born.    As  for  her 
soul  ...  it  is  not  awake  because  it  is  not 
mentioned  in  the  Almanach  de  Gotha  !    I  wish 
we  had  a  Burke  about  souls.    How  marvellous 
it  would  be  ! 


Vulgarity,  like  beauty,  is  distributed  by 
the  gods  without  prejudice;  it  has  nothing  to 
do  with  one's  birth.  Besides,  what  is  vulgarity 
but  the  unrestrained  exhibition  of  too  common 
human  failings?  When  we  call  persons  vulgar 
we  mean  that  they  are  commonplace  in  an 
artless  and  energetic  way. 

185 


Life  and  To-morrow 

People  who  are  only  in  each  other's 
company  for  amusement  and  happiness  never 
really  like  each  other  so  much  as  those  who 
work  together. 

Beyond  doubt,  the  tendency  in  EngKsh  society 
is  toward  parochiaKsm,  or  rather  provincialism, 
in  the  point  of  view.    Englishwomen  are  known 
to  be  difficult  travellers  and  suspicious  of  new 
faces  ;  they  confuse  the  notion  conveyed  by  the 
phrase  "  tres  grande  dame  "  with  the  beneficent 
condescension    of    a    lady   bountiful  toward 
obscure,  illiterate,  and  servile  dependents ;  they 
often  mistake  the  formal  precedence  given  by 
titles  or  official  rank  for  some  actual  superiority 
in    tissue;  independence  of   spirit  bewilders, 
repels,  terrifies  them,  and  they  are  annoyed  at 
any  demonstration  of  what  is  called  personality 
in  idea,  ideals,  or  conduct;  each  will  permit 
herself  or  her  satellites  a  good  deal  of  acute 
eccentricity  in  dress  and  manner,  but  it  is 
always  the  eccentricity  of  the  amateur— it  is 
rarely  spontaneous,  original,  or  convincing.^  In 
fact,  Enghshwomen  can  seldom  become  citizen- 
esses  of  the  world— the  legitimate  heiresses  of  a 
vast  Empire— without  losing  altogether  the 
note,  which  should  be  dominant,  of  their  own 
Mother  Country.    If  they  are  found  charming 
in    cosmopolitan    society,   they  usually  seem 
unsympathetic  in  England,  out  of  tune  with 
Londoners,  ill  at  ease,  misunderstood,  distrusted 

186 


Society 

in  country  houses.  The  great  success,  either  in 
diplomatic,  or  military,  or  political,  or  aristo- 
cratic circles  abroad,  is  seldom  popular  at  home. 
He  or  she  has  gained  a  larger  vision,  a  flexibility 
in  thought,  an  impatience  under  arbitrary  local 
pettinesses  in  every  disguise.  The  return  of  the 
native  means  too  often  the  return  of  the  utterly 
estranged. 


187 


POLITICS 


Your  chances  in  the  House  will  be  clean  lost  if  it  once  gets  rumoured 
that  your  opinions  have  a  touch  of  other-worldliness.  They  want  serious 
politicians. 


POLITICS 


As  FOR  POLITICS  .  .  .  both  political  parties 
disgust  me.  When  I  see  two  legions  of  vulgar 
fanatics  fighting,  I  find  it  a  war  between  those 
who  want  to  keep  everything  for  themselves 
and  those  who  try  to  rob  others  of  what  they 
have  got.  The  arguments  they  fling  at  each 
other  are  empty  declarations,  and  all  the 
benefits  which  they  describe  on  platforms  they 
forget  in  the  jealousies  and  schemes  of  mere 
party  interest. 

Political  reputations  are  made  by  saying 
what  you  think,  and  they  are  kept  by  saying 
what  you  don't  think! 

There  is  NOTmNo  more  fatal  to  a  political 
career  than  brilliant  impromptus  and  spirited 
orations.  A  statesman's  words,  like  butcher's 
meat,  should  be  well  weighed. 

To  BE  RISING  is  in  many  respects  more  agree- 
able than  to  have  risen.  In  one  case  it  is  all 
looking  forward,  in  the  other  it  is  all  looking 

191 


Life  and  To-morrow 

back— and  looking  back  is  not  the  joyfuUest 
work  in  the  world.    Lot's  wife  was  an  allegory. 

A  MAN  WITH  A  CAREER  can  have  no  time  to 
waste  upon  his  wife  or  his  friends— he  has  to 
devote  himself  wholly  to  his  enemies. 

The  men  who  struggle  for  the  public  good 
die— either  in  battle  or  from  over- work— while 
the  sharks,  adventurers,  and  drones  share  in  the 
results  of  victory  without  having  to  pay  for  it, 
whether  in  blood  or  by  labour. 

Those  in  this  country  who  try  to  improve 
matters  are  cal'  ^d  faddists  and  "  cranks,"  or 
they  are  accused  of  working  for  self-interest. 
A  martyrdom  nowadays  would  be  called  an 
advertisement. 


192 


XVI 
ENGLAND 

English  people  are  at  their  best  when  surprised  into  agreeableness. 


N 


ENGLAND 


Other  countries— especially  those  of  Europe 
— may  be  compared,  but  England,  with  its 
ideas  and  customs,  is  the  one  place  which  will 
never  be  cosmopolitan.  Catholicism — Protes- 
tantism itself  —  takes  peculiar,  distinctive 
characteristics  in  this  country. 

The  English  can  never  deal  with  systems 
or  ideas.  They  can  only  attack  individuals — 
you  depend  in  a  crisis  on  the  passions  of  men ; 
never  on  their  reason.  Whereas  if  you  over- 
hauled their  reason,  worked  it,  and  trained  it, 
the  passions,  at  the  critical  moment,  would  be 
roused  with  better  effect,  and  would  be  properly 
organised.  Organised  passions  are  what  you 
need  for  a  strong  pubhc  movement.  Whirling 
emotions  in  contrary  currents  are  utterly  futile. 

It  is  strange  .  .  .  that  EngHshmen  and 
Turks  take  no  interest  at  all  in  the  souls  of 
women.  We  all  admire  physical  beauty,  but 
moral  beauty  exercises  the  lasting  fascination, 
and  as  a  study  it  is  the  more  engrossing.  Now 

195 


Life  and  To-morrow 

Frenchmen  are  instinctively  drawn  toward 
psychology  ;  so  are  Germans  to  a  certain 
degree,  so  are  Russians,  Italians,  and  Ameri- 
cans. Yes,  would  you  believe  it,  these  practical, 
hard-headed  Americans  are  greatly  attracted 
always  by  the  feminine  soul  and  mind?  They 
like  to  know  what  women  think,  how  they 
feel ;  they  are  inspired  by  their  ideas ;  but  in 
England,  if  you  speak  of  a  woman's  soul  to 
a  man,  he  supposes  you  must  be  either  mad 
or  affected. 

The  multiplication  of  unnecessary  words 
—each  representing  a  bit  of  money  — is  a 
national  calamity.  It  has  affected  the  House 
of  Commons,  the  Law  Courts,  the  transactions 
of  all  business,  pubhc  or  private,  the  composi- 
tion of  every  class  of  book,  the  newspapers, 
and,  finally,  the  mind  of  the  race.  ...  In  art 
every  line  should  be  alive,  and  in  speech, 
whether  domestic,  commercial,  or  rhetorical, 
every  remark  should  convey  a  direct  notion- 
otherwise  it  may  be  called  dead.  But  .  .  . 
people  think  their  indolent,  valueless,  uncon- 
sidered thoughts  aloud  ;  no  child  is  ever  taught 
how  to  control  his  mental  processes  ;  no  man 
is  ever  asked  to  put  his  ideas  into  concise 
form. 

We  have  reached  the  stage  when  senti- 
mentality and  philosophism  have  taken  up  the 

196 


England 

room  of  poets  and  philosophers.  The  new 
generation  in  our  educated  classes  seem  to  feel 
that  nothing,  save  money,  is  worth  their  while. 
On  the  other  hand,  in  the  labour  classes,  there 
is  an  aggressive  desire  on  the  part  of  each  unit 
to  assert  his  or  her  individuality.  Now  it  has 
always  seemed  to  me  that  the  gospel  of 
Individuality  is  a  doctrine  of  failure,  whether 
in  politics  or  art  or  in  any  other  sphere.  That 
Mazzini  said  this  when  he  was  urging  a  revo- 
lution, with  himself  as  its  presiding  spirit,  does  * 
not  detract  from  its  profound  truth  as  a 
dictum  !  A  strong  personality,  following  on  the 
beaten  track,  may,  perhaps,  go  a  step  or  two 
farther  than  his  guides,  whereas,  if  he  seeks  to 
cut  out  a  path  of  his  own,  he  will  find  himself 
wandering  in  a  painful  circle  outside  the 
common  starting-point. 

The  consequences  of  any  action  are  no 
longer  regarded  as  eternal  or  even  irremediable ; 
they  may  be  serious — they  cannot  be  ever- 
lasting ;  they  may  be  hard — they  cannot  be 
beyond  some  alleviation.  The  new  view  of 
existence  is  not  exactly  cynical  because 
cynicism  is  based  on  some  system,  at  least,  of 
thought  or  philosophy ;  but  it  is  flippant. 

I  THINK  IT  WOULD  be  a  pity  if  we  became,  as 
a  nation,  flippant.  It  does  not  suit  us,  because 
it  is  only  an  outward  flippancy.    It  is  not  in  the 

197 


Life  and  To-morrow 


race  to  take  things,  which  we  have  been  taught 
to  regard  as  sacred,  lightly,  but  the  evident 
rebeUion  against  utterly  false  conventions  .  .  . 
is  a  sign  of  great  health  and  vigour  in  the 
present  generation. 

Many  of  the  observant  in  Europe  have 
noticed  that  the  desire  for  immortality  is  dying 
out.  A  number  of  men  no  longer  wish  to  live 
for  ever— but  they  do  wish  to  live  as  pleasantly 
as  possible  while  they  live.  .  .  .  But,  just  as 
people  never  worked  as  they  work  now,  they 
were  never  before  so  eager  as  they  are  at  the 
present  day  to  have  luxuries  and  pleasures  and 
enjoyments  of  every  kind— and  they  are  des- 
perate, often  without  knowing  it,  because,  also 
without  knowing  it,  they  have  this  feeling  .  .  . 
that  if  they  do  not  get  some  prize  here,  and 
immediately,  to  show  for  their  pains,  they  may 
never  get  anything  at  all. 

There  are  signs  in  the  land  that  the  great 
science  of  human  souls— which  was  always  the 
first  consideration  in  the  Catholic  religion  and  in 
all  other  mastering  religions— is  being  restored 
to  its  right  position  at  the  head  of  all  the 
sciences.  It  is  a  monstrous  thing  to  compre- 
hend the  stomach  of  a  dead  fish,  and  misjudge, 
through  ignorance,  your  brother  s  soul. 

I  DO  NOT  SAY  THAT  there  is  not  enough 
198 


England 

self-analysis  and  self-introspection.  The  least 
sympathetic  persons  will  think  willingly  and 
incessantly  of  themselves.  .  .  .  Self-study  is  to 
psychology  what  the  practice  of  scales  is  to  the 
musician— a  means  of  gaining  clearness.  But 
just  as  one  may  play  scales  to  perfection,  yet 
stumble  ignominiously  through  a  fugue  by  Bach, 
so  the  individual  may  know,  beyond  praise, 
himself  and  his  needs,  and  yet  go  utterly  wrong 
in  his  estimate  of  a  fellow  creature. 

We  live  at  a  time  when  most  men  and 
women    have    progressive,   analytical  minds. 
Humanity  and  the  world  do  not  explain  them- 
selves naturally  or  easily.  .  .  .  There  is  an  in- 
satiable curiosity  about  the    why    and  the 
wherefore.    When  we  hear  that  this  is  so,  we 
next  wonder  whether  it  need  be  so,  especially 
when  the  rule  seems  to  press  unfairly  upon  us, 
or  upon  those  we  love.    In  other  words,  there  is 
an  immense  impatience  of  the  unnecessary.  We 
all  wish  to  reduce  the  pain,  confusion,  disap- 
pointments, and  tyrannies  of  life  to  the  lowest 
possible  minimum.     And  so,  daily,  practical 
experience  offers  more  instruction  upon  formid- 
able enigmas  than  any  meditation  or  science 
can  ever  give.    That  is  why  we  often  say  that 
an  energetic  life  is  the  happiest.    There  is  no 
time  to  think.    I  prefer  to  say  that  there  is  no 
time  to  exaggerate  our  thoughts  and  emotions. 


199 


XVII 
INDIA 


Kali  .  .  .  remains  .  .  .  eternally  mysterious,  eternally  baffling- 
menace  to  the  ignorant,  a  reality  to  the  despairing. 


INDIA 


At  half-past  four  in  the  morning,  while 
the  stars  made  the  city  lights  seem  little  more 
than  candle  flames,  and  the  bright  moon  made 
the  harbour  signals  mere  spots  of  glowing  red, 
I  saw  Bombay,  a  dark,  low  mass  against  the 
sky,   for  the   first  time.  ...  The  spirit  and 
pride  of  Empire  must  fill  the  heart  of  the  least 
ambitious  Englishman  when  he  sets  foot  on 
Indian  soil  and  beholds  the  life,   the  colour, 
the  imposing  buildings,  the   strangeness,  the 
fascination  of  the  city  of  Bombay.  .  .  .  During 
those  brilliant  moments  when  one  unforget- 
table  impression  succeeded  another  as  weird 
and   unforgettable— (the    light   in    the  East 
makes  every  scene  a  permanent  silhouette  in 
one's  mind)— I  saw,   for   me,   a  whole  new 
continent  revealed— new    in   feeling,  action, 
motive,  form,  philosophy,  thought,  achievement. 
The  eternal  energy  of  the  world  was^  mani- 
festing itself  in  ways,  for  objects,  on  principles 
and  under  conditions  magnificently  unfamiliar 
to  the  European.  Yet  this  was  the  point  for 

203 


Life  and  To-morrow 

wonder  and  exaltation :  it  had  all  been  or- 
ganised, it  is  now  governed  and  subdued  by 
Englishmen,  who,  having  inherited  England's 
prejudices  and  traditions,  have  received  the 
great  advantage  of  an  English  education  and 
suffered  the  disadvantage  of  English  insularity. 
Imperialism  in  the  ordinary  London  man 
seems,  and  is,  vanity  ;  to  foreigners,  who  have 
never  visited  India  or  the  Colonies,  it  is  the 
last  feather  straggling  on  a  moulting  peacock. 
But  let  the  satirist  come  to  Bombay — even  for 
an  hour — he  need  not  go  further ;  he  will 
admit  freely,  and  no  more  doubt  the  vigour 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  or  his  stability  to  hold  a 
vast  possession. 

The  first  impression  of  Bombay  may  be 
compared  with  the  first  impression  of  New 
York — power  and  enterprise  are  in  the  air; 
but  whereas  New  York  has  already  an  appear- 
ance of  too  much  luxury,  too  much  ease,  and 
of  being,  as  it  were,  the  haunt  of  mere 
pleasure  lovers,  Bombay,  built  as  Venice  was 
built,  on  small  islands,  seems  still  in  her  first 
youth — a  rising  city,  immature,  not  over-rich ; 
a  city  where  all  men  go  forth  early  to  their 
labours,  and  dream  at  night  of  ambitions 
hardly  to  be  fulfilled,  of  wishes  which  must 
wait,  at  best,  for  many  a  year  before  they 
may  be  gratified ;  a  city  of  patient  hearts, 
watchful  eyes,  hopes  long  deferred. 

204 


India 


There  is  a  force  in  the  plains  of  India  as 
cruel  and  as  forbidding,  as  deep  and  as  hungry 
as  the  sea;  there  is,  one  feels,  a  world  of 
worlds  engulfed  in  the  barren  soil ;  it  has  a 
fearful  vitality— the  ruined  city  of  Fatehpur- 
Sikri  is  dead,  imperial  ancient  Rome  is  dead, 
Versailles  is  dead,  but  the  plains  breathe  as 
the  ocean  breathes ;  they  hold  a  terror  which 
strikes,  captivates,  appals  the  imagination. 
You  look  away  in  weariness — the  eternal 
sameness  and  aridity  hold  no  plea  for  your 
love,  but  your  eyes  will  have  caught  the  dull 
dye  of  the  sand ;  the  blue  dome  over  Florence, 
the  tenderness  of  the  sky  in  Touraine,  the 
autumn  sunsets  off  the  Hampshire  coast  will 
seem  unreal  and  fading  impressions  after  the 
monochrome  of  India. 

Many  descriptions  have  been  written  of 
the  Palace  .  .  .  built  by  Shah  Jehan  at  Delhi 
.  .  .  but  in  giving  the  rich  details  one  loses 
the  delicacy  of  the  whole  effect.  A  precious 
stone  is  not  beautiful  because  it  is  large,  or 
costly,  or  extraordinary,  but  because  of  its 
colour,  or  its  position  in  some  decorative 
scheme.  ...  It  is  not  the  splendour  of  the 
Diwan-i-Am  and  the  Diwan-i-Khas,  but  their 
exquisite  symmetry  which  enchant  the  eye ; 
it  is  the  design  of  the  inlay,  not  the  rarity 
of  the  materials  employed,  which  seems  to 
cast  upon  the   walls  some   far-off  reflection 

205 


Life  and  To-morrow 


from  the  City  not  made  with  hands."  Never- 
theless, the  atmosphere  of  the  Palace,  and  its 
appeal  to  the  heart,  is  that  of  the  earth  and 
the  fulness  thereof.  After  two  and  a  half 
centuries  of  tragic,  mysterious  history,  it 
stands,  true  to  its  inscription  .  .  . 

If  on  earth  be  an  Eden  of  bliss, 
It  is  this,  it  is  this,  it  is  this," 

— a  supreme  pleasure  house — the  one  perfect 
temple  in  existence  for  pride  and  the  flesh.  If 
one  could  imagine  the  Joy  of  Life  wandering 
restless,  homeless,  and  forgotten  through  the 
world,  she  would  halt  at  last  at  Shah  Jehan's 
Eden  of  Bliss  and  make  it  her  abiding-place. 
It  is  perfect,  because  of  all  architects— the 
Hindu,  the  Buddhist,  the  Egyptian,  the  Jew, 
the  Pagan,  the  Christian — the  Mohammedan 
alone  could  believe  in  the  permanency  and 
everlasting  dominion  of  the  senses.  To  him 
there  was  no  mockery  in  earthly  passions ; 
to  him  there  was  no  need  of  Epicurean  philo- 
sophy to  dissuade  his  mind  from  pondering 
too  bitterly  on  the  evanescence  of  every 
delight.  He  did  not  say,  with  the  old  heretic 
Omar  : — 

"  And  if  the  wine  you  drink,  the  lip  you  press, 
End  in  the  nothing  all  things  end  in — Yes ; 
Then  fancy  while  thou  art,  thou  art  but  what 
Thou  shalt  be — Nothing,    Thou  shalt  not  be  less." 

He  did  not  have   before  him,  as  the  reward 

206 


India 

for  a  life  of  self-abnegation,  the  indefinable 
Nirvana,  which,  according  to  some,  is  a  country 
of  celestial  happiness,  to  others  a  state  of 
absolute  annihilation,  where  man  is  delivered 
for  ever  from  life,  its  evils,  and  its  fugitive 
gladness.  To  him  the  absorption  of  his  own 
soul  hereafter  in  the  universal  spirit  offered 
no  recompense  for  religious  austerities  and 
meditations  here  ;  for  him  the  bliss  of  Moksha 
was  neither  credible  nor  alluring ;  to  him 
there  was  no  blessedness  in  mourning,  no  in- 
heritance for  the  meek  and  lowly,  no  vanity 
in  youth,  no  folly  in  love,  no  snare  in  bodily 
beauty,  no  deception  in  riches,  no  adder  in 
the  cup,  no  hidden  woe  in  festivals.  And  so 
he  was  able  to  create  with  exultation  and 
security  a  palace  to  the  greater  glory  of  man. 
In  the  gayest  capitals  of  Christendom  there 
is  a  lurking  self-contempt,  and  a  certain  de- 
fiance about  the  mansions,  whether  new  or 
old,  of  the  rich.  They  are  built,  let  us  say, 
to  last  long  enough.  Royal  abodes  are  grave 
and  chilling ;  the  new  hotels,  restaurants, 
theatres,  and  music-halls  have  a  forced  bright- 
ness ;  one  feels  that  they  were  all  conceived  in 
melancholy,  as  a  financial  speculation  for  the 
use  of  a  fatigued,  feverish,  and  unbelieving 
race. 

Comparisons  between  the  Himalayas  and 
the  Alps  are  commonly,  and  I  think  wrongly^ 

207 


Life  and  To-morrow 

made.  The  vast,  vague,  and  sentimental  terms 
applied  to  mountain  scenery  are  in  the  vocabu- 
lary of  every  tourist,  and  cover  pages  of 
every  guide-book ;  unless  one  has  something 
to  offer  which  is  peculiarly  illuminating  or 
profound  on  this  tortured  subject,  silence  is 
best.  Mountain  regions,  moreover,  demand 
the  most  faithful  study.  Let  me  confess  that 
I  have  not  the  audacity  to  attempt  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  sunlight  on  Kinchinjunga  and 
Mount  Everest,  merely  because  I  once  rose 
at  four  in  the  morning  and  saw  that  glory. 
As  well  spend  an  hour  at  daybreak  with  a 
pilgrimage  outside  St.  Peter's  at  Rome  and 
write  an  exposition  of  Renaissance  archi- 
tecture. One  receives  a  stupendous  and 
stupefying  impression  of  forces  unrealised, 
heights  unreachable,  depths  incalculable,  worlds 
elsewhere,  cities  without  sites,  towering,  it  may 
be,  between  the  earth  we  know  a  little  and 
the  sky  we  question  in  vain.  We  may  send 
our  souls  there,  but  we  must  leave  our  lan- 
guage, our  daily  similes  and  metaphors,  our 
secret  idols,  our  weights  and  measures,  behind. 


208 


XVIIl 
VARIA 

There  is  nothing  so  fascinating  as  sincerity.    It  is  so  uncommon  ! 


O 


VARIA 


People  are  so  fond  of  quoting  God  when 
the  Law  is  inconvenient !  And  when  God  is 
inconvenient,  they  quote  the  Law. 

It  is  almost  as  easy  to  do  wrong  for  a  good 

motive,  as  to  do  right  for  a  bad  one.  There 

are  always  so  many  reasons  why  we  should 
follow  our  own  wishes. 

A  FOOL  CAN  GIVE  more  reasons  for  his  folly 
than  a  saint  can  urge  for  his  wisdom.  We 
have  five  senses,  but  only  one  conscience. 
That  explains  everything.  The  game  is 
unequal. 

Some  kinds  of  knowledge  you  cannot  study 
— you  find  them  when  you  are  looking  for  some- 
thing else. 

Conscious  refinement  may  not  be  pleasing, 
but  it  is  an  incomparably  better  thing  than 
grossness,  whether  conscious  or  unconscious. 

211 


Life  and  To-morrow 


People  get  to  like  a  soul,  but  a  satisfactory 
hat  makes  an  impression  at  first  sight. 

When  an  unpleasant  truth  has  once  been 
admitted,  it  often  becomes  not  only  the  easiest, 
but  the  most  enticing  topic  of  conversation. 

Do  NOT  GET  your  nose  in  an  artificial  manure- 
heap  and  think  you  are  studying  nature. 

Interesting  things  are  never  true  .  .  .  and 
the  truth  is  only  convincing  when  it  is  told  by 
an  experienced  liar. 

No   STAGE   is  so  DEGRADING  as  the  pulpit  if 

you  are  driven  to  exhibit  yourself  there. 

People  in  general  cling  to  their  opinions 
not  because  they  are  true,  but  because  they  are 
their  own. 

If  we  always  observed  our  friend's  wishes 
at  the  sacrifice  of  our  own,  we  might  often  find 
ourselves  committed  to  much  that  would  be 
unwise,  and  more  that  might  even  be  immoral ! 

All  forced  virtue  is  degrading  in  its  effect. 

There  is  an  invertebrate  pseudo-philosophic 
jargon  come  into  fasliion  which  is  the  most 
immoral  thing  I  know.    The  old  naive  senti- 

212 


Varia 


mentality  was  silly,  and  overdone,  but  it  was 
at  least  graceful,  and  it  was  almost  decisive. 
This  other  is  utterly  hollow.  It  makes  the 
whole  of  life  seem  unreal.  And  yet  it  makes 
for  the  same  result  as  plainer  talk.  Tout  finit 
toujours  de  meme  .  .  .  par  la  fin. 

Poets,  reformers,  and  philosophers — even 
religions — change  nothing.  They  merely  give 
humanity  new  reasons  for  doing  the  old  things, 
or  old  advice  in  fresh  language. 

A  TRUTH  IS  NOT  to  be  set  aside  by  any  other 
truth  whatever. 

When  enthusiasm  grows  languid,  the  up- 
right conscience  will  snatch  at  any  occasion  for 
the  display  of  numb  generosity. 

Those  who  despise  artificial  privileges  do  not 
attract  those  who  make  artificial  privileges 
worth  while. 

Discretion  generally  means  having  a  good 
memory  for  the  lies  you  have  told. 

Only  very  dangerous  people  tell  the  truth 
about  themselves :  the  wise  try  to  tell  it  about 
other  people  ;  the  discreet  avoid  it  altogether. 

Most  true  things  are  in  bad  taste. 
213 


Life  and  To-morrow 

There  is  no  virtue  so  sublime  that  it  cannot 
be  used  with  advantage  even  in  a  comedy- 
situation. 

Few  things  are  so  full  of  mockery  as  virtue, 
and  if  those  who  cannot  maintain  it  have  to 
endure  a  certain  open  contempt,  those  who 
remain  steadfast  often  break  their  hearts  in 
secret. 

If  St.  Ignatius  had  not  been  wounded  at 
Pampeluna,  should  we  have  heard  so  much 
about  the  Jesuits?  If  only  the  beautiful  and 
contented  and  young  were  allowed  to  sit  in 
judgment,  what  different  verdicts  we  should 
get  on  social  sinners  ! 

Philosophy  is  an  amusement  to  those  who 
feel  nothing,  and  death  to  those  who  feel  too 
much. 

Humour  is  the  refuge  of  the  disappointed 
wise. 

Of  the  music-lovers  one  meets,  half  of  them 
are  merely  animals  hypnotised  by  a  noise;  a 
third  abhor  it,  but  have  not  the  courage  to 
say  so. 

The  Arts  are  but  drugs  for  the  disappointed 
imagination.    When  I  meet  some  one  who  can 

211 


Varia 

be  natural  without  becoming  a  revelation  of 
human  brutality  or  imbecility,  I  ask  nothing 
from  the  Arts. 

Mind,  in  the  long  run,  always  feeds  upon 
heart. 

When  the  emotions  awake,  they  set  about 
their  business  of  destroying  the  body  ;  they  bite 
and  rend. 

What  is  duty?  It  generally  means  that 
which  your  acquaintances — for  no  reason  and 
without  warrant — expect  of  you. 

Duty  ...  in  the  heroic  age  meant  the  in- 
terests of  religion  and  country.  State  and 
family;  now  it  is  often  taken  to  mean  the 
claims  of  the  individual  soul. 

To  PLAY  TO  THE  GALLERY  is  considered  an 
abject  performance.  Yet  the  gallery  do  not 
feel  ashamed  of  themselves. 

Hints  belong  to  the  unconsidered  patience 
of  fools. 

There  is  nothing  more  fascinating  to  a  child 
than  an  old  doll  with  a  new  head.  The  doll,  in 
course  of  time,  swells  the  dust-heap,  but  the 
sentiment  is  everlasting. 

215 


Life  and  To-morrow 


Among  the  many  voices  in  a  man's  heart, 
there  is  always  one  that  remains  incorruptibly 
honest. 

No  MAN  WANTS  what  he  almost  wants. 

We  take  our  joys  as  though  they  were 
trifles,  and  act  as  though  melancholy  were  the 
only  serious  thing  in  life. 

No  MAN  KNOWS  his  language  till  he  has 
lived  it. 

Some  thoughts  .  .  .  are  as  impalpable  as 
sounds,  and,  just  as  music  ceases  to  be  divine 
when  it  is  poured  out  of  some  mechanical  con- 
trivance, so  the  mysteries  of  the  human  soul 
become  mere  bodily  conditions — more  or  less 
humiliating — when  demonstrated,  catalogued, 
and  legalised. 

All  things  have  a  resurrection  except  the 
emotions.  They  are  born  ;  they  die  ;  they  never 
return.  A  happiness  or  a  despair  once  gone  is 
a  phantom  for  ever. 

Death  in  grotesque  circumstances  is  none 
the  less  death,  and  the  martyr  to  a  fool's  cause 
is  still  a  martyr  ...  it  is  the  heart  that  makes 
the  occasion. 

216 


Varia 


Happiness  consists  in  being  able  to  formulate 
wishes  with  the  serene  knowledge  that  a  better 
wisdom  directs  their  fulfilment. 

The  veritable  world,  even  on  its  bare 
merits,  is  not  so  bad.  It  is  full  of  beauty,  and 
interest,  and  enjoyment.  It  is  a  lie  to  call  it 
so  many  vile  names.    One's  good  sense  revolts. 

The  distinction  between  inhumanity  and  the 
supernatural  lies  in  the  breath— the  inspiration 
of  mortal  deeds,  not  in  the  doers.  There  is  the 
idea  fallen  from  heaven,  the  idea  risen  from 
hell,  and  the  idea  rooted  in  Limbo— that  sphere 
of  unproved  trespassers  and  unestablished  saints. 
Any  one  of  these  three  ideas  will  make  the  man 
or  woman  possessing  it,  remarkable ;  it  will  be 
the  divine  element  in  the  noblest  success,  the 
terrible  word  in  the  least  pitiable  tragedy,  or 
the  germ  of  romance  in  the  most  ignominious 
failure. 

There  is  a  time  when  the  possible  Immortal 
in  us  will  be  no  longer  denied,  no  longer 
slighted,  no  longer  called  a  stomach — to  be 
calmed  with  roots  and  extracts,  nourished 
on  meats  and  milk. 

Passions  and  enthusiasms  leave  one;  they 
depend  on  our  happiness,  our  health,  a  host 
of  accidental,  non-essential  things,  whereas  you 

217 


Life  and  To-morrow 


can  remember  your  duty  at  every  turn — on 
your  death-bed,  or  at  your  gladdest  moment. 
Your  death  might  be  just  such  a  moment, 
so  the  alternative  is  not  so  sharp  as  it  ought 
to  be. 

The  terrorless  but  uncommunicating  joy  of 
life  which  while  men  live  they  pursue,  desiring 
it  with  the  one  human  craving  which  survives 
every  misfortune,  every  thwarted  hope,  all  en- 
slavement of  the  heart's  small  freedom— the 
thirst  for  happiness. 

Men  heap  together  the  mistakes  of  their 
lives  and  create  a  monster  which  they  call 
Destiny.  Some  take  a  mournful  joy  in  con- 
templating the  ugliness  of  the  idol.  These  are 
called  Stoics.  Others  build  it  a  temple  like 
Solomon's,  and  worship  the  temple.  These  are 
called  Epicureans. 

Some  are  the  prisoners  of  God  and  some 
are  the  prisoners  of  men.  .  .  .  Let  us  work — 
not  judging. 

The  condition  of  New  York  and  Chicago  now 
is  precisely  the  condition  of  old  Venice,  old 
Florence,  and  old  Athens.  These  great  cities 
were  brought  to  perfection  in  times  of  peace  by 
the  wealth  of  their  own  merchants.  .  .  .  The 
actual  temperament  of  the  American  people 

218 


Varia 


is  not  a  day  older  than  the  sixteenth  or 
seventeenth  century.  .  .  .  Their  very  faces  and 
features  belong  to  another  period.  They  suggest 
the  Old  Masters. 

Perhaps  the  most  remarkable  social  pheno- 
menon of  the  New  World  is  the  position  of 
women.  While  few  take  an  interest  in  political 
affairs,  while  they  seldom,  if  ever,  show  the 
least  interest  in  the  business  or  professional 
interests  of  their  male  relatives,  they  show  an 
extraordinary  activity  in  their  club  life,  in 
organisations  of  every  sort  and  description — 
philanthropic,  social,  and  educational  —  which 
alfect,  of  course,  the  whole  country.  The  com- 
bination of  nationalities  has  produced  a  woman 
who  has  something  in  common  with  all  races, 
and  still  remains  something  which  we  can  only 
define  as  American.  Her  greatest  characteristic 
is  ^her  independence  of  men's  society.  .  .  .  One 
cause,  I  think,  of  the  American  woman's  inde- 
pendence arises  from  the  fact  that  boys  and  girls 
are  educated,  to  a  great  extent,  together.  .  .  . 
The  girl  who  has  no  brothers  grows  up  inured 
to  the  peculiarities  of  the  human  boy  which  are 
so  apt  to  remain  the  peculiarities  of  the  grown 
man.  On  this  account  a  charge  is  sometimes 
brought  against  her  of  a  certain  coldness  and 
want  of  sentimentality.  .  .  .  But  it  is  too  soon 
yet  for  Americans  to  be  sentimental.  .  .  .  Senti- 
mentality belongs  to  the  late  eighteenth  and 

219 


Life  and  To-morrow 


early  nineteenth  centuries,  and  is  a  little  ahead 
of  them  still. 

The  Spanish,  of  all  European  people,  have 
changed  very  little  in  the  course  of  the  centuries. 
They  are  the  least  theatrical,  least  self-conscious 
race  in  the  world :  to  see  the  peculiar  natural- 
ness which  we  call  childlike,  we  must  study 
Spanish  men  and  Spanish  women.  Their  move- 
ments are  quiet;  their  faces  are,  for  the  most 
part,  transparent — their  character,  either  gentle 
or  undisciplined,  shines  through ;  in  speech,  they 
are  simple  ;  in  feeling,  they  are  not  subtle,  but, 
on  the  contrary,  very  definite ;  their  eyes  are 
not  given  to  flashing — they  are  usually  steady 
and  profound  ;  they  are  neither  very  merry  nor 
very  sad,  but  they  are  graciously  serious.  In 
their  loves  the  women  have  much  in  common 
with  Irish  women.  They  are  as  faithful,  and 
they  are  less  discerning — that  is  to  say,  they 
give  a  blind  love  and  they  are  not  witty  in 
detecting  the  ironies — many  of  them  hard — in 
all  affection. 


220 


XIX 

SORROW 

"  What  do  you  think  of  while  you  sit  alone  ?  " 
"I  think  of  summers  that  are  past  and  stars 
That  fall  ! 


There  is  nothing  left  to  say.  My  heart — which  holds  my  words — 
is  broken. 


SORROW 


O  WEEP,  MY  HEART,  for  Summer  days  are  fled, 
The  earth  is  cold,  and  roses  that  were  red, 
Birds  that  once  sang,  and  little  things  that 

flew 
Are  dead. 

The  pallid  day  is  moist  with  chilling  dew, 
There  is  no  noon,  because  the  wind  that  blew 
The  clouds  across  the  sun,  is  stern,  poor  heart, 
Like  you. 

The  knowledge  which  depends  upon  suffer- 
ing, and,  in  a  way,  springs  from  it,  is  good,  yet 
it  must  always  be  incomplete.  Happiness  has 
its  light  also,  and  in  order  to  get  the  right 
explanation  of  any  soul,  or  to  understand  the 
meaning  of  any  situation,  one  must  have  had 
at  least  a  few  glad  hours,  felt  the  ecstasy  of 
thoughtless  joy,  drifted  a  little  while  with  the 
rushing,  unhindered  tide. 

Most  op  the  world's  sorrow  is  caused  by 
the   blindness   of   the   unimaginative.  They 

223 


Life  and  To-morrow 

happen  to  be  in  the  majority,  and  the  rest 
have  to  spend  their  lives  wincmg. 

It  is  often  held  that  it  is  better  to  have 
trouble  in  one's  youth  than  in  one's  middle- 
age ;  the  fresh  heart,  it  is  thought,  is  stronger 
to  bear  grief.    But  this  is  not  the  case.  Afresh 
heart  is  also  an  immature  one  ;  it  is  tender, 
impressionable,  amseasoned,  altogether  too  deli- 
cate for  hard  blows.    No  sorrow  is  so  bitter, 
because  it  is  so  httle  expected,  or  so  unmiti- 
gated, because  it  is  so  little  understood,  as  the 
sorrow  in  a  young  mind.    The  world  at  once 
seems  squalid,  Providence  unjust,  and  when 
the  sense  of  suffering  injustice  begins  to  domi- 
nate a  soul  at  its  first  flight  the  wings  grow 
heavy,  the  way  looks   dark   with  unknown 
terrors,  and  the  ultimate  goal  is  considered 
as  some  probable  mockery,  cruel  and  desolate. 

SOREOW  WILL  EITHER  destroy  or  quicken 
what  may  be  called  the  animal  charm  m  a 
human  countenance. 

Money  makes  a  difference;  it  is  in  one 
way  or  another  at  the  root  of  most  sorrows. 
One  cannot  move  without  it.    Philosophers,  as 

a  race,  have  been  men  of  private  means  

The  over-anxious  have  no  time  to  moralise. 

One       .  WAY  of  meeting  sorrow  is  to  get 
224 


Sorrow 


most  awfully  interested  in  it,  and  take  a  sort 
of  poetic  view  of  it.  One  can  do  it.  Indeed, 
that  is  why  self-flagellants  of  all  sorts  get  a 
pretty  good  time.  Shut  out  feeling — both  for 
yourself  and  for  others,  and  look  at  what  is 
going  on  in  your  own  heart  and  body — just 
as  if  it  did  not  matter  a  jot  to  you  or  to 
anybody  else. 

No  DOUBT  SOME  of  the  most  beautiful,  the 
most  enduring,  the  purely  disenfranchised 
objective  of  the  world  has  been  done  by 
slaves  :  they  had  so  much  to  forget  that  they 
hurled  themselves — mind,  heart,  and  body  into 
their  task  as  men  leap  from  a  burning  ship 
into  the  sea.  A  man's  unhappiness  may  be 
good  for  his  work  .  .  .  but  it  is  not  good 
for  him. 

Pleasures  are  so  much  more  difficult  to 
remember  than  woes,  and^  while  hours  of 
happiness  are  dearer  in  their  passage  than  in 
their  recollection,  hardship  and  suffering  are 
resented  more  fiercely  when  they  are  over- 
come and  outlived  than  at  the  time  when  the 
very  necessity  for  their  endurance  produces  a 
certain  stupor. 

When  the  heart  has  a  certain  measure  of 
distress,  it  is  agitated  and  in  revolt,  but  when 
it  is  full  of  woe  and  can  contain  no  more,  it  is 

225  p 


Life  and  To-morrow 


still,  and  its  stillness  passes  for  resignation  to 
destiny. 

Why  does  nothing  seem  incongruous  or 
humiliating  to  the  happy?  To  happy  people 
— bent  on  pleasure  or  interesting  business — 
omnibuses,  cabs,  and  trains  are  accepted  gaily. 
But  misery  renders  the  mind  sensitive  and 
critical ;  it  fears  to  be  made  grotesque,  and 
the  first  pang  of  discontent  is  also  the  first 
yearning  for  pomp — which  is  a  disguise — or, 
failing  that,  invisibility. 

The  feeling  v^hich  is  worse  than  .  .  .  anger 
or  the  desire  for  vengeance  .  .  .  because  it  is 
more  enduring  and  more  subtle,  because  w^hen 
it  has  once  entered  into  a  heart  it  leaves  its 
poison  there  for  ever — the  deep  despair  which 
is  the  counterfeit  of  resignation. 

The  people  who  suffer  most  are  always 
those  who  have  a  sense  of  justice. 

When  the  moment  comes  for  the  rack  there 
is  no  sudden  awakening  as  from  a  bad  dream. 
The  torture  has  to  be  endured,  and  no  miraculous 
release  turns  the  agony  into  peace. 

Is  NIGHT  LESS  NIGHT  because  it  pales  gloriously 
before  the  sun?  Is  day  less  day  because  it 
darkens  into  evening  ?     Is  joy  a  false  thing 

226 


Sorrow 


because  it  passes?  Does  not  sorrow  pass 
also  ? 

I  CANNOT  FORGET  that  every  supreme  blessing 
must  be  bought  with  long  sadness,  both  before 
and  after. 

If  no  one  is  completely  happy,  no  one  is 
completely  unhappy.  On  the  other  side  of 
the  limit  fixed  to  all  suffering  and  all  joy, 
there  is  a  sort  of  stupor. 

To  BE  HAPPY  in  a  light,  easy  way — without 
any  trouble  ...  is  impossible.  True  happiness 
has  something  terrific — all  but  agonising — 
always.  It  is  a  birthright.  Do  not  hang  back 
from  it.  Get  rid  of  the  fear  of  suffering.  It  is 
a  state  of  death — not  life  ! 

Let  heart-sickness  pass  beyond  a  certain 
bitter  point  and  the  heart  loses  its  life  for 
ever. 

Hope  is  the  heroic  form  of  despair.  Such 
must  have  been  the  feeling  of  the  great  Law- 
giver, who,  if  you  remember,  sang  as  he 
started  for  the  Promised  Land,  and  died  in 
silence  when  it  was  at  last  shown  to  him. 

Moods  change,  and  the  most  dolorous  are 
often  remembered    with    smiles.     Yet  they 

227 


Life  and  To-morrow 

never  fail  to  contribute  to  the  heart's  great 
hidden  store  of  misery  and  disappointment. 

Despair— that  tearless,  white  despair  which 
falls  on  the  shoulders  Hke  a  mantle  of  stone— 
for  ever  cold,  never  more  to  be  thrown  aside. 
It  faUs  so  Hghtly  at  first,  almost  like  snow  .  .  . 
or  does  it  stun,  and  for  that  reason  seem 
nothing  till  consciousness  returns? 

It  is  not  until  everything  has  gone  wrong 
that  we  see  how  easily  it  might  all  have 
been  right.  And  always  ourselves  to  blame, 
never  any  one  else— only  ourselves. 

It  is  always  terrible  to  see  human  beings 
martyred  by  the  pain  which  they  themselves 
have  invented  for  their  own  torment. 

If  tragic  experiences  come,  they  must  not 
be  deliberately  sought :  cold-blooded  curiosity, 
premeditated  imprudence,  stimulated  feehng, 
teach  nothing  but  bitterness,  and  give  nothmg 
except  artificiality.  ...  One  unexpected,  untold 
sorrow  is  a  surer  discipline  than  any  immber 
of  elaborate,  acknowledged,  and  paraded  griefs. 

When  uncontrollable  grief  takes  posses- 
sion of  a  strong  soul,  it  comes  almost  as  a 
child  that  must  be  indulged  and  compassionately 
treated. 

228 


Sorrow 


Pain  and  despair  and  heartache  .  .  .  cast 
you  down  for  awhile,  but  afterwards — they 
help  you  to  understand. 

It  is  hard  to  be  just  when  you  are  miserable. 
It  is  so  hard  not  to  hate  the  happy  when  you 
feel  heartbroken. 

Extreme  grief  hath  no  fear,  nor  limit,  nor 

shame  .  .  . 
Its  violence,  impalpable  as  the  wind, 
Scatters  our  inmost  nature  till  we  seem 
Bare  empty  trees  with  neither    wood  nor 

leaves — 

But  only  bark  that's  brittle,  and  soon  dust ! 

There's  much  for  men  to  do,  yet,  when  all's 
done. 

All's  said,  all's  planned,  all's  thought,  there 

still  is  much 
That  men  have  to  forget.    And  this  is  hardest 
Of  all  his  labour  underneath  the  sun. 

Death  can  occur  more  than  once  in  one 
life.  The  passing  away  of  every  strong  emotion 
means  a  burial  and  a  grave,  a  change  and 
a  resurrection.  The  tearful,  dusty,  fiery,  airy 
process  must  be  endured  seventy  times  seven 
and  more,  and  more  again — from  everlasting 
to  everlasting.  And  the  cause  is  nothing,  the 
motives  are  nothing,  the  great,  great  affliction 

229 


Life  and  To-morrow 

and  the  child's  little  woe  pass  alike  through 
the  Process— for  the  Process  belongs  to  the 
eternal  law,  whereas  the  rest  is  of  the  heart's 
capacity. 

One  has  to  be  very  strong  in  order  to 
support  the  realisation  of  a  long  deferred, 
almost  abandoned  hope.  Affliction  seems  to 
intensify  a  personality,  adding  to  it  a  distinct- 
ness, a  power  altogether  commanding  and 
irresistible,  but  even  in  our  purest  happiness 
we  lose  something  of  ourselves,  and  become, 
momentarily  at  least,  less  our  own  masters,  and 
more  pliant  to  the  reproof  of  chance,  the  sport 
of  destiny. 

There  is  but  one  way  of  resisting  the  woe 
of  life— the  infinite  must  oppose  the  infinite. 
Infinite  sorrow  must  be  met  by  infinite  love.  ... 
We  have  the  sorrow,  and  the  infinite  love  is 
God's.  .  .  .  Still  the  very   book  in  which  the 
vanity  of  all  things   is  most  insisted  on  has 
lived    itself    nearly    three    thousand  years. 
Solomon  has  given  the  He  to  his  own  despair 
of  being  remembered.  ...  I  believe  he  wanted 
to  conquer  the  world,  which  is  strong,  and  his 
own  weakness,  which  was  even  stronger,  as  an 
adversary.     We  must  know  the  measure  of  a 
man's  desires  before  we  can  sound  the  depths 
of  his  regrets. 

230 


Sorrow 


I  AM  SURE  that  sorrow  is  never  in  God's 
ordinance  the  whole  law  of  life. 

There  are  thoughts  which  are  companions 
having  a  language,  and  there  are  other  thoughts 
which  rest  in  a  painful  sleep  upon  our  souls 
till  the  dumb  weight  of  them  brings  us  to  dust. 
Grief,  despair,  the  desire  of  beauty,  the  sorrow 
of  partings,  the  thirst  of  ambition,  the  attach- 
ment to  friends  are  not  small,  contemptible 
weaknesses.  Vanitas  vanitatum  omnia  vanitas  is 
the  cry — when  we  hear  it  in  the  market-place — 
not  of  wisdom  but  of  weariness.  It  is  uttered 
in  the  qualms  of  satiety  and  disappointment :  it 
does  not  come  from  the  great  spirit  of  renuncia- 
tion. A  strong  man  has  living  blood  in  his 
veins  and  he  shows  his  character  not  by  despis- 
ing— still  less  in  denying — his  emotions,  but  in 
exalting  them.  And  that  is  no  light  achieve- 
ment. The  labour  of  it  is  not  until  the  evening 
only,  but  for  the  watches  of  the  night  and  the 
early  morning  and  the  noon-day,  and  for  all  the 
Seasons  and  for  all  the  year  and  for  all  the 
Fasts  and  for  all  the  Feasts. 

It  is  always  easy  to  say  of  another's  misfor- 
tune, "What  does  it  matter  to  me?"  or,  "There 
must  be  these  sentimental — these  emotional — 
crises.  They  form  the  character.  It  is  all  for 
the  best — God  is  good!"  All  these  things  are 
true  in  the  substance;  all  these  things  occur 

231 


Life  and  To-morrow 


invariably  to  the  wise  spectator  of  human  fates. 
But  more  than  wisdom— more  than  the  formal 
utterances  of  piety  is  sometimes  required  of  us, 
and,  while  a  sleepless  night  for  your  neighbour's 
woe  may  not  assist  him  materially  in  his 
trouble,  we  know  that  the  Divine  Economy  per- 
mits nothing  to  be  wasted.  Every  unselfish 
thought  sends  a  lasting  fragrance  into  the 
whole  moral  atmosphere  of  the  soul. 

To  THOSE  WHO  are  unhappy,  to-morrow  is  a 
word  without  significance. 


AN  EPILOGUE 

{Spoken  by  a  Daughter  of  Eve,  zvho  is  loeeping, 
and  an  Angel,  tvho  looks  out  of  fashion.) 

THE  ANGEL. 

This  is  only  Sorrow 

For  To-Day. 

Life  begins  To-morrow! 

A  DAUGHTER  OF  EVE. 

So  they  say. 

THE  ANGEL. 

Life  with  love  and  laughter 
Gay  and  free — 
Yet  no  heartache  after. 
232 


Sorrow 


A  DAUGHTER  OF  EVE. 

Can  it  be? 

THE  ANGEL. 

Life  with  work  that  reaches 

To  the  sky; 

Life  that  never  teaches 

How  to  die. 

Life  that  is  eternal, 

Ever  young, 

Ever  bright  and  vernal 

Just  begun  I 

A  DAUGHTER  OF  EVE. 

Will  To-morrow  ever  dawn? 
Shall  we  wake  that  golden  morn 
But  to  see 

All  the  treasures  gained  by  tears, 
All  the  faith  that's  won  by  fears- 
Vanity  ? 

THE  ANGEL. 

Doubter,  look  behind  thee 
In  the  past, 

All  the  dreams  that  pleased  thee 
Did  one  last  ? 
Is  a  wish  remaining 
From  thy  youth  ? 
This  thou  art  retaining 
If  't  was  truth. 
Mortal  passions  sicken, 
233 


Life  and  To-morrow 


Fade  away — 

Love  alone  can  quicken 

Earthly  clay. 

Faith,  and  all  endeavour 

That  is  pure, 

Hope  and  Love,  for  ever 

These  endure. 

All  things  else  are  folly 

To  the  wise, — 

Quit  thy  melancholy 

And  thy  sighs  ! 

Suffering  can  never  be  suppressed  by  statute. 
It  is  a  law  of  nature,  but,  as  all  other  laws  of 
nature,  since  it  must  be  obeyed,  let  us  at  least 
submit  as  sons  of  God  and  co-heirs  with  Christ— 
not  as  beasts  of  burden  and  as  those  who  believe 
that  all  labour  is  in  vain. 


234 


XX 
DEATH 


Rest  to  their  spirits  !  Satan  hath  tried  them  sore. 
God  shall  adjudge  them  now  :  man  never  more  ! 

The  night  is  gone  and  morning  is  come  unto  me  ! 


DEATH 


Whatever  one  says  of  life  must  be  insincere, 
because  life  itself  is  insincere.  But  death  is 
sincere. 

People  die  of  long,  cruel,  weary,  sorrowful, 
or  empty  days  ;  never  of  a  bright  one,  and  never 
unaccountably.  Nothing  is  more  reasonable 
than  death. 

Is  IT  so  EASY  even  to  acquiesce  in  the  great 
bereavements  caused  naturally,  against  our  will, 
by  death  ?  Does  one  ever,  in  the  hidden  depths 
of  the  mind,  mistake  the  cinders  of  a  consumed 
anguish  for  the  stars  of  peace  ? 

If,  after  many  years,  the  dead  we  have 
broken  our  hearts  for  could  return  to  us— what 
should  we  say  to  them  ?  What  should  we  offer  ? 
Words  which  are  only  sounds,  the  arid  stain  of 
tears  once  shed,  a  teeming  love  drilled  into  a 
barren  misery,  arms  which  have  clasped  thin 
air  too  long  to  know  how  to  embrace  a  friend. 

237 


Life  and  To-morrow 

"  Go  back,"  one  would  say,  "  go  back  !  I  have 
forgotten  how  to  be  glad.  I  cannot  welcome 
ye  ;  I  have  nothing  to  say  to  ye."  And  perhaps 
they  would  leave  us,  and,  as  they  disappeared 
again  from  our  blind  sight,  we  should  feel  again 
in  our  inanimate  lives  the  old  ache  and  agony, 
the  torturing  pulse  of  human  grief. 

Death  itself,  when  at  last  we  reach  it, 
is  probably  not  lonely — for  solitude  is  only 
oppressive  during  our  waking  hours. 

Death  never  gathered  pain  from  face  more 
tranquil. 

No  fearfulness  is  here.    This  filthy  world 
Has  ta'en  its  cruellest  tax. 


238 


XXI 


RELIGION 


I  am  thinking  of  the  things  that  money  cannot  buy  ...  the  ideals  that 
men  and  women  have  died  for,  for  which  they  have  been  burnt — tortured, 
martyred.    Are  they  nothing  in  the  world  ? 

We  have  to  look  upon  this  world  as  the  merest  pilgrimage,  but  we  can 
help  each  other.    I  have  hope  because  I  have  faith. 


% 


I 


RELIGION 


A  DIALOGUE 

Between  Luttrel,  a  Socialist,  and  Father 
Stonyhurst,  a  Jesuit, 

Luttrel.  My  dear  Stonyhurst,  is  there  any 
chance  of  your  becoming  a  Mormon  prophet? 

Stonyhurst.    God  forbid  ! 
^  Luttrel.    Then  you   will  understand  how 
likely  I  am  to  accept  Roman  Catholicism. 

Stonyhurst.  No  man's  experience  can  teach 
another,  but  I  have  seldom  met  a  reformer  who 
did  not  have  a  personal  grievance,  or  a  grudge, 
against  one,  at  least,  of  the  Commandments. 
He  wants,  as  a  rule,  something  that  he  has 
not  got. 

Luttrel.  That  is  a  universal  feeling— it 
fills  your  churches  too.  Religion  is  mainly  for 
the  discontented,  and  governments  encourage 
it  because,  on  the  whole,  it  keeps  the  poor 
resigned,  and  the  rich  terrified!  How  many 
revolutions  have  been  held  in  check  by  the 
parable  of  Lazarus  and  Dives  ?  Give  parables 
to  the  mild,  and  gin  to  the  strong.  There's 
constitutional  legislature  in  a  nutshell. 


Life  and  To-morrow 

Stonyhurst.  You  are  in  good  spirits,  and 
a  little  joke  at  the  expense  of  humanity  doesn't 
come  amiss.  The  heart,  to  be  serious,  always 
is  dissatisfied.  I  will  allow  that.  But  when 
the  average  sensual  man  begins  to  use  his 
reason,  it  is  usually  to  justify  his  bad  actions, 
or  his  worst  desires.  One  may  reason  ^  ad- 
mirably and  reach  monstrous  conclusions. 
There  was  very  little  the  matter,  I  take  it, 
with  Nero's  logic.  Scoundrels  and  maniacs  are 
never  fools. 

LUTTREL.  I'll  be  generous,  and  own  that 
saints  are  never  fools  either!  There  is  a  great 
deal  to  be  said  for  every  point  of  view.  But 
the  moral  faculty  is  a  faculty  of  feeling— a 
susceptibility  of  pleasure  or  pain.  We  are  free 
to  act,  perhaps;  we  are  not  always  free  to 
desire.  The  strongest  motive  wins  the  day 
always.  The  strongest  motive  with  you  is  to 
renounce.  You  give  up  your  will,  your  nature, 
all  your  secondary  interest.  The  main  interest 
is  obviously  religion.  I  take  everything  the 
gods  send  in  my  way.  I  want  to  enjoy  exis- 
tence to  the  full.  I  have  watched  these  men 
who  quarrel  with  life— their  years  of  shattered 
nerves,  the  dread  of  insanity,  wretched,  sinking 
energy,  sleepless  nights,  despair  ! 

Stonyhurst.    You  would  go  through  as  much 
and  more  for  a  political  struggle,  or  some  love 

LuTTREL.    But  why  keep  in  a  pond  when  the 
242 


Religion 

whole  ocean  is  free  to  you  ? — although  I  daresay 
it  is  a  question  of  temperament.  But  say  you 
are  ambitious  or  hungry.  You  can  decide 
whether  you  will  gratify  that  wish  for  power, 
or  that  appetite.  You  cannot  command  the 
desire  as  a  craving,  or  the  hunger  as  a  sensa- 
tion, or  destroy  either  by  refusing  to  indulge 
them.  They  are  there — they  are  part  of  you, 
yourself. 

Stonyhukst.  And  why  not  ?  But  you  have 
admitted  that  the  decision  rests  with  you 
whether  you  will  work  for  the  ambition,  or 
appease  the  hunger.  There's  your  will.  As  for 
ruling  motives  or  ruling  passions — if  you  sit 
brooding  on  your  thumb  for  a  sufficient  number 
of  hours,  you  will  soon  get  to  find  that  your 
thumb  governs  your  existence.  You  will  be- 
come, as  it  were,  a  thumb  and  nothing  else ! 

LuTTREL.  Granted.  The  same  argument  ap- 
plies to  the  will-power.  Meditate  on  that  and 
it  will,  undoubtedly,  control  one  to  a  miraculous 
point.  And  thus  we  come  again  to  the  strongest 
motive. 

Stonyhurst.  But  it  isn't  the  argument  ever 
— it  is  the  still,  small  voice.  A  poor  old  French 
cure  I  knew  used  to  have  one  answer  for  all 
questions — "  II  faut  ecouter  le  coeur  !  " 

LuTTREL.    That  is  precisely  what  I  am  doing. 

Stonyhurst.  Then  there  is  hope  for  you. 
I  feared  you  were  trusting  entirely  to  Pure 
Reason !    The  heart  has  its  own  punishments 

243 


Life  and  To-morrow 


for  its  own  errors,  and  its  own  light  for  its  own 
darkness.  A  man  is  judged  according  to  what 
he  hath,  and  not  according  to  what  he  hath  not. 

LuTTREL.  In  Heaven,  possibly,  but  certainly 
not  in  this  world.  Here  he  is  judged  according 
to  what  other  people  have  in  the  way  of 
intelligence  or  knowledge.  There  is  never  the 
slightest  trouble  or  thought  taken  to  reahse 
why  anybody  does  anything,  thinks  anything, 
or  feels  anything.  A  man  is  to  be  hanged  next 
month  for  some  crime.  Has  he  been  judged 
according  to  what  he  hath,  or  what  we  have 
done  for  him,  or  what  we  did  for  his  parents  ? 
No,  we  seem  to  start  with  the  assumption  that 
he  had  every  natural  and  moral  inclination 
fostered  in  righteousness.  It  is  quicker  to  hang 
him  than  to  think  about  him ! 

Stonyhurst.  Your  heart  is  in  the  right 
place !  I  leave  you  to  your  own  heart  and 
Almighty  God  ! 

Religion  is  the  one  thing  which  can  give 
either  meaning  or  dignity  to  life. 

The  two  things  which  affect  a  career  most 
profoundly  are  religion,  or  the  lack  of  it,  and 
marriage,  or  not  marrying ;  for  these  things 
only  penetrate  to  the  soul  and  make  what  may 
be  called  its  perpetual  atmosphere.  The  Catholic 
Faith,  which  ignores  no  single  possibility  in 
human  feeling  and  no  possible  flight  in  human 

214 


Religion 

idealism,  produces  in  those  who  hold  it  truly  a 
freshness  of  heart  very  hard  to  be  understood 
by  the  dispassionate  critic  who  weighs  character 
by  the  newest  laws  of  his  favourite  degenerate, 
but  never  by  the  primeval  tests  of  God. 

All  ouk  finest  ideas  of  romantic  chivalry 
are  Roman  Catholic.  The  Church  .  .  .  has 
taught  us  that  Marriage  is  a  Sacrament.  She 
has  ever  laboured  to  inspire  men  with  a 
reverence  for  women.  Do  we  not  call  Holy 
Church  herself,  our  Mother  ?  Is  not  the  Blessed 
Virgin  our  gracious  advocate,  vita,  dulcedo,  et 
spes  nostra  ?  No  true  Catholic  husband  or  wife 
could  ever  fear  the  "  influence  "  of  Catholicism. 
The  fears  would  be  for  the  influences  of  all  the 
putrid  philosophy  outside  it. 

The  immortal  spirit  can  find  no  permanent 
content  in  pleasures  that  must  pass,  no  per- 
manent despair  in  griefs  that  are  also  transient 
although  their  flight  be  slower.  Joy  is  a 
swallow :  woe,  an  eagle,  but  both  have  wings. 
The  soul  that  is  hid  with  God  may  watch  these 
birds  and  wanderers  whirling,  drifting,  darting 
around  the  ever-fixed  Rock  of  Christ's  Church- 
away  from  which  there  is  indeed  no  salvation 
either  in  time  or  in  eternity. 

The  sense  of  nearness  to  God  and  of  His 
actual  existence  as  the  supreme  King  of  earth, 
and  heaven,  and  hell,  was  the  crown  of  the 

245 


Life  and  To-morrow 

early  martyrs  and  the  sword  of  early  Puri- 
tanism. As  that  knowledge  grew  less  vivid,  and 
scepticism-making  a  profession  of  reverence- 
called  this  chivalric  trust  prof  ane-hedgmg  the 
King's  Divinity  about  with  mysteries,  with 
insurmountable  barriers  of  dogma  and  Church 
etiquette,  so  the  crown  was  stolen  and  the 
sword  became  a  white  feather.  The  fear  ot 
approaching  a  Throne  too  closely  and  the  desire 
to  keep  it  inaccessible  was  and  is  ever  the 
characteristic  of  those  who  would  usurp  its 
power-never  of  the  faithful  who  would  serve 
and  protect  it. 

As  AN  ORGANISATION,  the  Catholic  Church  is 
at  once  the  most  democratic  and  the  most 
aristocratic  in  the  world. 

Nonconformity  in  England  has  been  so 
much  impressed  by  the  Old  Testament  that 
it  might  almost  be  called  the  Jewish  rehgion 
without  the  Synagogue;  the  materiahsm 
without  the  profundity;  the  love  of  the 
present  without  the  vision  of  the  future  ;^  the 
Commandments  without  Rabbiiiism.  This  is 
the  problem  ...  put  before  them :  How  to 
live  with  reference  to  a  world  conceived  m  the 
terms  of  the  Christian  creed  ;  because  there  are 
as  many  worlds  as  there  are  creeds,  and  each 
man  endeavours  to  fit  the  world  into  the 
particular  creed  or  philosophy  to  which  he 

246 


Religion 

subscribes.  .  .  .  All  faith  is  as  much  an  instinct 
and  also  a  blindness  (as  the  world  sees)  as 
human  love.  Some  wish  it  endorsed  by  the 
authority  of  an  infallible  Church.  Others  wish 
it  sustained  by  the  authority  of  an  infallible 
Bible.  ...  I  see  the  intellectual  strut  of  the 
Protestant  who  will  exercise  his  own  judgment, 
who  wants  to  reduce  his  religious  obligations 
to  a  private  understanding  between  himself 
and  his  God — Who  is  usually  what  he  takes  to 
be  his  own  higher  self.  The  strut  is  foolish  ; 
the  rest  arises  often  from  mere  want  of 
education ;  or,  in  the  educated,  it  is  mere 
pride  of  intellect,  known  as  the  sin  of  Lucifer ; 
or  it  is  a  real  incapacity  to  submit  one's  mind 
to  any  sort  of  moral  force  from  without. 
(Physical  force  has  never  yet  changed  a 
tendency  or  an  opinion.)  This,  then,  I  believe 
to  be  the  incurable  quality  in  a  born  Protestant 
— whether  pious  or  impious  by  temperament : 
he  insists  on  the  liberty  to  think  and  feel  and 
act  as  he  pleases,  without  regard  to  the  pre- 
judices of  any  other  human  being.  You  will 
say  this  quality  is  common  enough  to  all 
vigorous  natures ;  that  it  belongs  to  original 
sin.  True,  but  whereas  the  Catholic  is  willing — 
frequently  anxious — to  conquer  rebelliousness, 
the  Protestant  is  proud  of  it,  cultivates  it,  and 
calls  it — so  far  from  a  fault — a  manly  virtue. 
The  Church  of  Rome  appeals  with  astonishing 
strength  to  two  utterly  opposite  multitudes : 

247 


Life  and  To-morrow 

1.  The  imaginative,  the  tender,  the  romantic, 
the  visionary,  and  the  poor ;  in  other  words, 
to  all  those  to  whom  the  world  offers  little  or 
nothing.  They  may  not  be  orderly,  but  they 
are  often  devout.  2.  The  lovers  of  law,  of 
security,  of  symmetry,  of  monarchical  institu- 
tions, of  great  architecture  in  every  manifesta- 
tion, of  formalism,  of  ceremonial.  These  may 
not  be  devout,  but  they  are  always  orderly. 
To  all  such  she  must  ever  appeal.  But  to  those 
who,  better  than  all  created  things,  love  their 
individual  liberty  (which  means,  I  grant,  uni- 
versal anarchy),  the  Church  of  Rome  is  utterly 
detestable.  Rebels  and  vagabonds,  however, 
grow  old — if  they  are  not  executed,  if  they  do 
not  die  of  their  excesses  either  in  spiritual 
enthusiasm  or  in  so-called  crime.  After  middle- 
age  they  become  conservative,  and  at  last 
tyrannical,  as  the  experienced  madmen  in  an 
asylum — they  help  to  keep  the  fresher  lunatics 
in  order.  But  there  are  rebels  who  are  rebels 
in  thought  only  ;  for  them  spiritiial  adventures 
and  mental  revolutions  are  enough.  They  ask 
only  for  liberty  in  thinking.  Hence,  the  many 
Protestants  who  are  not  iconoclasts  ;  the  philo- 
sophers who  could  never  become  theologians  ; 
the  professors,  the  politicians,  the  preachers, 
who  seeing  good  in  all  things,  will  not  condemn 
more  than  a  part,  and  then  with  reluctance, 
of  anything.  These  are  the  people  who  have 
worked  hardest  for  civilisation.    The  dangers 

218 


Religion 

of  amiability  are  evident :  lack  of  conviction, 
lukewarmness,  a  drifting  spirit.  Somebody  must 
be  in  earnest ;  somebody  must  be  willing  to  risk 
a  mistake  or  a  false  step  ...  I  have  risked, 
and  made,  any  amount  of  mistakes.  I  have 
tried  experiments  which  experience  has  long 
since  proved  hopeless.  I  have  endeavoured  to 
live  my  life  as  though  no  one  had  ever  lived 
before  me.  When  I  tell  you  that  all  I  have 
learnt  so  far  confirms  absolutely  traditional 
prudence,  you  will  say,  "  The  Church  again  ! 
She  is  always  right !  "  But  cannot  one  speak 
of  tradition  without  thinking  of  Rome? 

The  Church  herself  is  not  intolerant,  but 
she  is  often  interpreted  by  narrow  persons. 

It  is  only  the  Church  of  Rome,  which,  as 
a  governing  body,  has  been  able  to  encourage 
the  great  ideas  of  any  one  person  without  loss 
to  its  own  power,  or  without  disaster  to  the 
person  encouraged.  ...  In  the  policy  of  Rome, 
the  first  consideration  is  for  the  eternal  welfare 
of  the  Church ;  the  whole  point  of  view  is 
fixed  on  what  is  to  come,  and  the  great  ideas, 
whether  in  the  individual,  or  in  the  council  as 
a  body,  all  arise  from  a  common  religious 
belief.  .  .  .  You  will  find  nowhere  out  of 
Rome  poetry  and  the  spirit  of  democracy  and 
a  reverence  for  authority  all  linked  together 
in  one  irrefragable  chain. 

249 


Life  and  To-morrow 

The  Protestants  insist  on  the  virtues — you 
must  assume  them  if  you  have  them  not;  the 
Catholics  lay  more  stress  on  the  Sacraments. 
Now  the  virtues  are,  after  all,  the  product  of 
philosophy.     Jewish    ethics,    under    the  old 
dispensation,  were  barbarous  when  we  com- 
pare  them  with  the  precepts  taught  by  the 
Pagan   moralists,   who  had,    nevertheless,  no 
hope,  and  were  without  God  in  the  world  !  The 
philosophic  mind  is  not  told  by  the  Hebrew 
prophets.    Passionate  invective;  cries  for  ven- 
geance ;  lamentations  and  mourning  and  woe ; 
threats  of  appalling  punishment;  promises  of 
earthly  recompense  and  the  urging  forward  to 
worldly  aims,  crowns  and  dignities— humanity, 
in    fact,    as  opposed    to    spirituality,   is  the 
great   strain   running  all   through  the  godli- 
ness taught  before  the  birth  of  Christ.  One 
might  be  perfectly  virtuous  in  every  human 
relation  and  yet  possess  an  irrehgious  soul.  On 
the  other  hand,  one  might  be  absolutely  con- 
vinced of  God's  revelation  of  Himself  and  yet 
sin  against  every  canon  of  right  conduct.  The 
devil,  for  instance,  must  have  a  sure  knowledge 
of  God  :  his  fault  was  treachery,  not  disbelief. 
This  thought  has  always  made  me  feel  that 
the  deepest  of  crimes  is  to  sin  against  light; 
it  has  also  helped  me  to  imderstand  why  .  .  . 
the  CathoHc  Church  is  so  much  more  severe 
toward  pride   of   intellect   than   against  the 
natural  weakness  of  the  heart.    I  think  it  con- 

250 


Religion 

ceivable  that  God  would  forgive  even  Satan, 
if  he  would  but  repent  and  love  Him.  Humanly 
speaking,  so  long  as  we  feel  that  we  are  really- 
loved  we  can  forgive  much.  The  faults  of  those 
who  love  us  are  more  acceptable  than  the  vir- 
tues of  those  who  treat  us  with  neglect.  I 
fully  comprehend,  therefore,  why  it  should 
be  a  more  vital  necessity  in  the  Christian  life 
to  attend  Mass  than  to  keep  a  stoic's  temper. 
Faith  in  God  does  not  in  itself  alter  the  funda- 
mental characteristics  of  a  man's  disposition. 
It  seems  to  me  unjust,  therefore,  to  call  any 
person  a  hypocrite  because,  while  in  creed  a 
Christian,  he  is  in  the  struggle  for  life,  greedy, 
untruthful,  malicious,  or  worse.  Strive  for  the 
calm  temper,  by  all  means,  if  you  have  not 
received  it — as  many  have  received  it  just  as 
some  are  blessed  with  good  health,  or  fine 
possessions,  or  a  serene  mind — but  never  suppose 
that  natural  graces  of  character,  or  acquired 
stoicism  or  Platonism,  or  any  other  "  ism  "  with- 
out acts  of  devotion  to  God  will  avail  you  at 
the  judgment ! 

If  there  were  not  another  world,  I  would 
tear  myself  into  shreds  for  the  very  first  dis- 
appointment I  met  with  in  this.  I  could  not 
bear  it — the  humiliation,  I  mean.  Nor  the 
thought  of  death  either.  I  would  leap,  of  my 
own  free  will,  into  the  depths  of  misery,  I 
would  say,  "  Not  at  your  time,  O  Nemesis,  but 

251 


Life  and  To-morrow 


at  my  time.    You  shall  not  call  me  at  your 
pleasure :  you  shall  not  hunt  about  for  me, 
entice  me  into  traps  baited  with  happiness,  find 
me,  put  me  to  slow  torture,  pour  me  out  at  your  ^ 
will.    No  ;  I  come  myself.    Tear  !  curse  !  burn  ! 
wound !  but  I  first  shall  have  bruised  my  own 
flesh,  cursed  my  own  life,  seared  my  own  heart, 
spread  out  my  own  soul,  like  a  torn  rag,  on 
your  pitch-fork."    This   is  the  proud   side  of 
the  philosophy  of  self -mortification,  the  human. 
Pagan  side.    Pride  says,    "I  will  not  eat  the 
wafers  made  with  honey  and  be  sick  afterwards, 
and    perhaps    be    beaten    into   the  bargain." 
Pride  says,  ''I  will  teach  my  mouth  to  loathe 
honey,  and  I  will  myself  be  a  beater,  beating 
myself.     What    better    brute?"     The  mere 
strength  of  a  man  will  declare  that  much — if 
he  can  love  anything  well  enough  to  feel  the 
loss  of  it.    Some,  of  course,  care  nothing  for 
things  and  persons,  but  are  concerned  only  with 
conditions.    They  will  crawd  from  roof  to  roof, 
and  from  root  to  root— foi^getting  the  peach 
if  they  can  find  a   turnip,  or  foregoing  the 
turnip  if  they  may  lap  up  the  rinsings  of  a  sour 
beer-cask.    But  these  are  worms  and  not  men. 
For  us — who  love  once  as  we  live  but  once — 
there  is  under  our  feet  the  soliditas  Cathedrce 
Petri.  From  this  we  see  the  other  world — indeed, 
the  greater  part  of  the  time  we  may  be  said 
to  move  in  it.    We  may  spend  whole  hours  in 
the  Very  Presence  of  the  Living  God.    He  is 

252 


Religion 

there  in  perpetuity :  He  is  to  be  found.  He 
will  come  Himself,  in  the  Blessed  Sacrament 
of  the  Altar,  to  the  heart  of  the  least  of  His 
worshippers.  It  is  there  and  then  that  pride, 
a  weak  force  at  best,  becomes  devotion — the 
mightiest  of  all  forces.  The  Lord  Incarnate, 
Who  laid  the  foundations  of  the  earth  and  shut 
up  the  sea  with  doors.  Who  commands  the 
morning  and  has  caused  the  day-spring  to  know 
his  place,  Who  alone  spreadeth  out  the  Heavens, 
and  bringeth  out  to  light  the  shadow  of  death — 
He,  the  Creator  of  the  world  and  its  Redeemer, 
is  Himself  a  Sacrifice.  To  know  this  is  to  know 
all  that  we  need  to  know.  But  if  the  rest  is 
not  easy,  we  always  feel  that  we  are  not 
shadows  with  the  gift  of  suffering,  nor  chained 
Titans,  nor  petty  deities,  but  nothing  less 
than  the  sons  of  God  and  Joint-heirs  with 
Christ.  Oh,  the  splendour,  the  liberty  of 
this  magnificent  certitude  !  Why  do  we  ever 
forget  it?  Why  do  we  sit  in  the  ashes, 
counting  the  temporal  things  we  have  lost 
or  may  lose,  when  we  have  inherited  as 
our  birth-right  all  the  eternal  fastnesses  of 
Heaven  ? 

The  cloistered  life— in  its  perpetual  pro- 
test against  all  that  is  mean  and  feverish — 
might  indeed  be  called  monotonous,  but  it  is 
the  monotony  of  the  cry  before  the  Throne— 
itself  imchanging — "  Sanctus,  Sanctus,  Sanctus, 

253 


Life  and  To-morrow 

Dominus  Deus  omnipotens,  qui  erat,  et  qui  est 
et  qui  venturus  est." 

The  Divixity  of  Christ  is  the  object  of 
eternal  contemplations,  and  at  every  age- 
not  of  the  world  only,  hut  of  the  individual— 
His  Humanity,  under  our  fresh  knowledge, 
demands  a  different  study,  and  a  fuUer  under- 
standing. 

Because  in  so:*ie  of  us  those  forces  which 
make  up  spiritual  greatness  have  become  de- 
graded into  sins,  nothing  could  be  falser  idealism 
than  to  assume  that  true  perfection  is  composed 
of  negatives— that  the  best  saint  is  the  one 
with  the  fewest  feelings.    Jesus  Christ  draws  all 
humanity  to  Him,  not  because  while  on  earth 
He  felt  less,  but  because  He  felt  more  than  all 
the  rest  of  mankind.    And  the  purer  the  heart, 
the  greater  its  capacity  for  sorrow  and  joy— 
the  sweeter  seem  earthly  blessings,  the  more 
humiliating  seems  earthly  pain.    It  was  not 
easy  for  the  Divine  Redeemer  of  the  world  to 
give  a  complete  and  irrevocable  acquiescence 
in  God's  mysterious  decrees.     Can  one  read 
of  the  Agony  at  Gethsemane,  and  doubt  that 
even  the°  smallest  act  of  self -mortification  in 
the  least  of  us  has  been  sanctified  by  that 
ineffable  victory  over  the  desire  to  escape  death 
—whether  of  the  will  or  in  the  flesh  ? 

254 


Religion 

Some  natures  attain  the  condition  of  reli- 
gious faith  only  after  many  and  harassing 
years  of  moral  experiments :  others,  on  the 
other  hand,  are  born  with  so  clear  a  sense  of 
the  Divine  Omnipresence  that  they  doubt  more 
readily  the  evidences  of  sight,  than  their  instinc- 
tive knowledge  of  the  invisible  God.  It  does 
not  invariably  follow  that  beings  endowed  with 
this  spiritual  perception  are  outwardly  holier, 
or  inwardly  more  pure  than  those  less  favoured. 
The  men  who  have  seen,  in  rare  moments  of 
inspiration,  the  vision  of  the  Eternal,  have  not 
had  fewer  temptations,  nor  have  they  sinned 
less  deeply— less  wilfully— than  their  blinder 
brothers. 

Man  is  known  to  God  by  his  aspirations— not 
by  his  lapses. 

Few  prayers  would  be  answered— and  fewer 
good  intentions  placed  to  our  credit — if  the 
Judge  of  all  hearts  demanded  that  same  un- 
swerving constancy  of  mind  from  us  which  we 
so  urgently  insist  on  from  our  fellow-creatures. 
To  be  wilfully  honest  with  another  human 
being  for  even  half  an  hour  is  enough  to  estab- 
lish some  claim,  at  all  events,  to  an  immortal 
soul.  And  it  is  enough  to  explain  the  Divine 
desire  to  save  the  same.  A  famous  priest  once 
wrote,  that  the  majority  of  sinners  were  so 
excessively  unpleasant  that  one  wondered  how 

255 


Life  and  To-morrow 


the  Almighty  could  feel  love  for  them.  The 
answer  seems  plain.  With  Him  we  are  always 
in  earnest,  and  earnestness  is  irresistibly  endear- 
ing. 

Do  WE  NOT  all  live  always  in  a  triple  atmo- 
sphere :  the  atmosphere  of  God,  the  atmosphere 
of  Nature,  and  the  atmosphere  of  humanity? 
Some  natures  may  feel  any  one  of  these  three 
influences  in  a  predominant  degree,  and  so  we 
get  what  are  called  differences  in  temperament. 
One  man  breathes  in  humanity  first,  and  God 
last.  A  second  will  put  Nature  last.  A  third 
will  put  Nature  first.  A  fourth  will  aspire  to 
God  before  all  things,  and  all  creatures.  But 
the  three  atmospheres  are  ever  with  us,  and 
make,  in  reality,  one  atmosphere.  You  may  toil 
through  many  volumes  of  Metaphysics,  and 
you  will  learn  no  higher  truth  than  that. 

As  IN  Nature  the  sun  that  quickens  the 
harvest  must,  if  unrelieved  by  other  influences, 
also  destroy  it,  so  does  a  fine  quality  become, 
in  the  human  being,  the  source  of  disasters  as 
well  as  triumphs.  .  .  .  What  bewilderment  and 
dismay,  what  self-doubt  and  doubt  of  all  thmgs 
assail  even  the  wisest  of  mortals  when  they 
find  that  the  lawful  is  not  always  expedient, 
that  a  measure,  blameless  in  itself,  is  not  invari- 
ably the  measure  set  down  by  command.  Among 
the  countless  problems  presented  to  the  mind, 

25(5 


Religion 

there  is  none  more  difficult  than  to  distinguish 
clearly  between  the  will  of  Providence  and  the 
accidents,  to  be  surmounted,  of  daily  life — to 
know  when  one  should  submit  to  circumstances 
and  when  one  should  rise  in  rebellion  against 
them. 

Reduced  to  its  very  simplest  forms,  the 
philosophy  of  St.  Ignatius  was  this :  That  man 
was  made  to  serve  God  and  save  his  own  soul ; 
that  in  order  to  do  this,  the  soul  must  first  free 
itself  from  all  inordinate  affections  ;  and,  after  it 
has  freed  itself  from  them,  it  must  seek  to  learn 
the  will  of  God,  and  so  find  its  own  salvation. 
He  was  no  advocate  of  debility  as  the  first  step 
to  Godliness  ;  and  he  never  taught  that  one 
could  best  follow  one's  vocation  by  inducing 
an  artificial  languor — indeed,  he  anticipated 
many  of  the  theories  which  we  like  to  call 
new  with  regard  to  diet  and  its  influence  on 
conduct.  But,  while  he  was  the  last  to  forget 
the  obvious  effect  of  one's  food  on  one's  health, 
and  the  more  subtle  influence  of  one's  health 
on  one's  mind,  he  did  not  over-estimate  either, 
as  we  do  in  these  days  of  superficial  materialism. 
He  did  not  think,  for  instance,  that  all  our 
faults  are  due  to  entrees,  that  all  our  virtues 
depend  on  the  beef  and  beer  we  abstain  from 
or  consume,  that  all  our  sorrows  can  be  mode- 
rated by  the  waters  of  Harrogate,  or  that  all 
our  gaiety  is  caused  and  all  our  emotions  are 

257  R 


Life  and  To-morrow 

intensified  by  expensive  wines  and  long  dinners 
at  noisy  restaurants.    He  knew  human  nature 
too  well  to  confound  the  digestion  with  the 
conscience;  so,  after  making  a  few  plain  rules 
for  sane  and  vigorous  living,  he  concentrated 
his  genius,  not  on  the  treatment  of  the  body 
and  its  organs,  but  on  the  exercise   of  the 
soul  and  its  chief  powers-the  understanding 
and  the  will.  ...  The  Saint  saw  deeply 
the  difficulties  of  mankind,  and  instead  ot  divid- 
ing the  race  into  the  happy  and  the  unhappy, 
the  rich  and  the  poor,  the  dreamers  and  the 
scoffers,  the  drones  and  the  toilers,  he  saw  two 
vast  classes  only-the  strong  and  the  weak: 
his  whole  wonderful  system  of  mental  training, 
education,  and  disciphne,  was  directed  toward 
making  the  strong  more  forbearing,  and  the 
weak  less  hopeless.     He  insists,  however,  on 
the  duty  of  cheerfulness;  he  regards  a  sombre 
air  or  moroseness  as  a  source  of  scandal  to 
others;  he  begs  us  to  sanctify  all  our  labour, 
whether    manual    or    intellectual,  superb  or 
humble,  by  consecrating  it  to  the  greater  glory 
of  God.    As  for  riches,  he  says  at  the  conclusion 
of  his  beautiful  prayer:  "Give  me,  O  God,  Thy 
love  and  Thy  grace;  with  these  I  am  rich 
enough." 

Ah  if  one  could  but  be  sure  of  the  ultimate 
triumph '  .  .  .  What  of  the  souls  who  fought, 
vet  apparently  failed-dying,  unknown,  un- 
^  258 


Religion 

acknowledged,  all  their  labours  unrewarded; 
who  turned  aside  from  the  broad  way,  yet, 
tor  some  reason,  were  not  to  be  found  upon 
the  narrow  one?  The  saints  who  have  no 
day !  Has  any  one  sung  their  histories,  preached 
their  martyrdoms?  .  .  .  Most  of  us  in  our  ap- 
prentice days  feel  mighty  enough  to  bear  the 
burden  of  success,  but  how  many  have  the 
strength  to  fail?  ...  Yet  why  not  forget  the 
crowmng  victory  or  the  final  humiliation, 
whichever  it  may  be :  the  task  is  the  thing-the 
task— a  faithful  answer  to  one's  calling. 

God  will  understand.  He  doesn't  ask  any 
one  to  be  alone.  He  wasn't  even  crucified- 
alone.    He  didn't  enter  into  Paradise-alone. 

It  is  all  very  hard  .  .  .  but  from  the  lowest 

Peonl  T  «^^rhead. 

Peoples  hearts  are  touched  by  the  spectacle 
of  sin  or  the  spectacle  of  suffering.  Our  Lord 
could  not  sin,  therefore  He  reached  our  sym- 
pathies by  His  Death  and  Sorrows.  Of  course. 
It  this  life  here  were  all,  and  this  world  were 
the  only^one,  and  we  were  animals  with  less 
beauty  than  many  of  the  inanimate  things  in 
nature,  and  as  much  intelligence  at  best  as  the 
bees  and  birds  and  ants-then  the  Pagan  way 
might  be  quite  admirable.    But  this  Isn't  the 


case 

259 


Life  and  To-morrow 

EVEBYTHING  THAT  IS  GOOD  in  Paganism  is  in 
Christianity,  if  you  understand  it. 

It  is  useful  to  hear  eternity  mentioned-for 
there  is  nothing  one  so  easily  forgets.  And  1 
envy  anybody  who  can  speak  of  God  as  tibough 
He  were  as  really  alive  as  the  Prince  of  Wales  ! 
In  these  days  men  put  on  a  false  tone  and  look 
canting  hypocrites  whenever  they  refer  to  the 
Almighty. 

When  I  hear  a  sermon  I  feel  an  inclination 
always  to  say,  "  My  dear  fellow,  can't  you  put 
vour  case  better?"   I  want  good  stuff  about 
Divine  and  human  nature-not  this  vagueness 
and  platitude.   Why  don't  they  tell  one  some- 
thing about  the  optimism  of  God,  even  before 
the  spectacle  of  men's  weakness  ?   But,  instead, 
we  are  told  to  moan  about  this  vale  of  tears: 
we  are  promised  chastisements,  disappomtments, 
woes,  persecution.    A  philosophy  of  suffermg 
makes  men  strong,  but  a  philosophy  of  despair 
is  bound  to  make  a  generation  of  pleasure- 
seekers. 

Men  forget  what  they  read ;  some  do  not 
read  at  all.  They  do  not,  however,  forget  what 
thev  are  told  by  a  vigorous  speaker  who  means 
what  he  says.  It  has  been  proved  ever  smce 
the  first  beginnings  of  poUtics  that  no  tyranny 
could   stand  for   long    against    the  warnmg 

260 


Religion 

prophet  or  the  preaching  friar  or  the  resolute 
Nonconformist.  Of  course,  he  must  be  in  dead 
earnest.  Newspapers,  pamphlets,  speeches  in 
Parliament,  and  reassurances  to  constituents 
are  as  nothing  compared  with  the  actual  in- 
fluence of  the  persistent  Sunday  sermons  of  a 
great  preacher.  Gladstone  had  the  preacher's 
quality— religious  earnestness.  Hence  his 
fascination.  It  fascinated  even  the  irreligious, 
because  anything  mysterious  appeals  to  the 
wonder. 

The  Devil  can  give  us  nothing.    It  is  we 
who  are  always  making  presents  to  the  Devil. 
Success  depends— not  on  the  Devil  at  all,  but 
on  our  natural  talents.    Look  at  the  dancing 
elephant— has  he  made  any  sacrifice  to  the 
spirits  of  evil  ?    Not  a  bit  of  it.    He  was  born 
with  a  light  foot— for  his  kind.    And  as  for 
work !    See  how  worldly  people  toil  and  scheme 
in  order  to  gain  their  treasure.    When  dis- 
appointments happen  they  become  the  jest  of 
serving-maids  and  lookers-on  —  food  for  the 
crowd!    They  perish  from  humiliation.    If  one 
wants  independence— one  must  keep  on  the  side 
of  the  angels!    That  is  mere  prudence— quite 
apart  from  every  other  thought. 

Is  THERE  ANY  earthly  reason  why  a  man 
should  hold  the  views  of  his  father?  We  should 
examine  our  beliefs  from  time  to  time.    We  can 

261 


Life  and  To-morrow 

see  whether  we  really  do  beUeve  what  we  think 
we  believe -or  what  we  wish  to  believe.  The 
fatal  symptom  is  to  be  afraid  of  questions.  .  .  . 
All  the  same,  we  can  never  get  rid  of  the  senti- 
ments which  are  born  with  us.  A  creed  is  not  a 
matter  of  logic— it  is  almost  wholly  a  feeling. 
No  argument  can  uproot  a  deep  feeling,  or 
produce  one. 

No  YOUNG  MAN  can  be  happy  unless  he  starts 
with  illusions.  To  have  illusions  about  a  poli- 
tical career  is  no  longer  possible  to  the 
observant;  it  is  still  possible  to  keep  a  few 
illusions  about  religion,  because  that  is  itself 
a  matter  of  illusions  and  the  evidence  of  things 
not  seen— hence  its  strength.  What  we  see  we 
often  learn  to  despise.  KeHgion,  therefore,  can 
only  be  beaten  by  an  illusion  as  powerful.  And 
where  can  that  come  from?  And  when  will 
men  be  as  much  disappointed  in  God  as  they 
are  in  each  other? 

Religion  comes  into  every  act  and  thought 
of  life— or  it  is  not  religion. 

What  is  the  good  of  all  this  religion  unless 
people  take  it  sensibly  and  apply  it  to  life? 
One  rattles  off  the  Commandments  as  though 
they  were  not  scientific  truths. 

Men  attach  an  undue  importance  to  this  or 
262 


Religion 

that  point  in  received  notions  of  etiquette.  We 
happen  to  be  placed  in  an  age  of  the  world 
which  is  conspicuous  for  the  decency  of  its 
manners.  That  is  to  say,  so  long  as  one 
behaves  what  is  called  "decently,"  or  "with 
common  prudence,"  one  need  not  trouble  much 
about  higher  considerations.  But  we  are  by 
nature  what  we  are.  ...  I  do  not  wish  to  reach 
that  stage  of  self-suppression  when  one  becomes 
self -less.  Till  we  have  done  something,  we  have 
done  nothing.  .  .  .  Almighty  God  has  given  us 
two  whole  worlds  but  only  one  Faith— millions 
of  fellow-mortals  and  only  Ten  Commandments. 
Our  opportunities  and  liberties  are  thus 
enormous.    They  were  meant  to  be  used. 

The  world  has  no  imagination,  but  it  is 
not  heartless.  Give  it  good  facts  for  its 
sentiment,  and  it  will  not  try  to  wound  your 
soul.  As  a  rule,  however,  a  man  will  say, 
"  I  cannot  believe  in  the  Resurrection,  therefore 
I  shall  break  as  many  of  the  Commandments 
as  thwart  my  personal  leanings."  That  is  the 
attitude  of  mind  which  infuriates  the  kind  and 
the  unkind  alike,  because  it  is  insincere.  ...  A 
belief  in  the  Resurrection  will  not  keep  a  man 
from  drunkenness,  or  dishonesty,  or  lying,  or 
any  other  vice,  nor  will  it  keep  him  from  gout, 
or  consumption,  or  death.  A  doubt  of  the 
Resurrection  is,  therefore,  no  excuse  for  being 
human.    Let  a  man  stand  by  his  humanity 

263 


Life  and  To-morrow 


without  pretending  that  he  would  be  an  angel  if 
he  could  but  accept  the  Gospels  1 

A  MAX  NEED  NOT  BE  a  prophet  in  order  to 
foresee  the  effect  of  certain  measures  on  his 
own  character.  Indeed,  if  self-knowledge  be 
not  regarded  as  a  sentinel  to  the  judgment,  its 
laborio^us  acquisition  would  be  worth  the  travail 
of  no  honest  will.  Gained,  it  remains  like 
an  mterdict  upon  all  undertakings,  projects, 
ambitions,  settmg  forth  clearly  all  that  one 
may,  or  may  not,  attempt  in  common  life,  and, 
above  all.  'in  heroism  —  heroism  understood 
truly,  not  the  false  ideals  of  idle,  untaxed 
sentiment. 

In  all  that  a  max  can  bring  into  the  world, 
or  take  from  it,  there  is  vanity  and  death;  but 
many  things  are  vain  merely  because  they  are 
not  eternal,  and  many  things  perish  because 
where  life  is,  change  must  be.  Immutable,  per- 
manent possessions  are  the  gifts  of  God  to  men. 
But  the  gifts  of  men  to  God  will  always  be 
imperfect— whether  they  offer  the  sacrifice  of 
their  wills  or  their  imagined  earthly  happiness. 

Self-discipline  seems  a  sealed  mystery  to 
most  people  except  the  Catholics  and  the 
Buddhists.  Protestants  never  speak  of  it,  never 
think  of  it.  Their  education  is  all  for  self- 
concealment. 

261 


Religion 

So  LONG  AS  ONE  can  exercise  outward  self- 
mastery,  one  is  accused  of  frigid  egoism  and 
bleakness  of  character.  The  temptations  which 
are  overcome,  the  interior  contests  and  struggles 
count  for  nothing,  and  are  unimaginable  to 
those  who  follow  every  caprice  and  yield  to 
every  persuasion.  Few  have  the  generosity 
to  acknowledge  that,  although  high  standards 
of  conduct  make  for  peace  in  the  ultimate 
resource,  the  long  discipline  between  the  begin- 
ning and  the  end  is  forbidding,  forlorn,  and  so 
severe  that  one  is  usually  too  weary  to  care 
much  for  the  very  thing  one  has  striven  for,  and 
perhaps  gained.  The  truth  is  that  one  is 
encouraged  almost  entirely  by  the  far  worse 
condition  and  disappointments  of  those  who 
disregard  the  standards:  for,  if  the  souls  who 
struggle  against  temptations  are  unhappy, 
those  who  succumb  to  them  are  incomparably 
more  so. 

Men  will  own  willingly  the  dangers, 
escapes,  reverses,  and  fatigues  that  they  have 
met  or  suffered  in  the  body.  Such  tales  inspire 
the  heart  with  courage,  and  a  hero  is  found 
great  in  proportion  to  the  desperation  of  his 
earthly  circumstances.  But  when  we  come  to 
the  adventures  of  the  spiritual  world,  the  case 
is  changed.  Either  from  pride  or  cowardice, 
it  has  become  the  fashion  to  make  light  of 
those  mental  combats  and  perils  by  which, 

265 


Life  and  To-morrow 

after   all,   human  action  is   determined  and 
must  ultimately  be  judged.    Men,  who  after 
many  secret  disasters  have  attained  to  the 
apparent  serenity  of  middle  age,  will  often  leave 
it  to  be  inferred  that  they  have  never  been 
otherwise  than  sure  of  their  own  opinions,  con- 
fident in  their  own  good  sense,  and  unswerving 
in  their  duty  toward  God,  their  neighbours  and 
themselves.    They  ask  what  is  the  meaning  of 
temptation  (beyond  the  common  indiscretions  of 
the  table),  and  they  feel  certain  that  the  soul 
must  be  already  in  a  bad  way  when  Satan  has 
the  hardihood  to  address  it.    As  for  them,  they 
know  nothing  about  demons,  and,  while  they 
have  had,  with  the   rest  of  mankind,  their 
ups   and  downs— these  necessary  shifts,  by  a 
special  Providence,   were  never  permitted  to 
disturb  their  reason's  equilibrium.    Now  if  these 
accounts  were  true,  it  might  well  be  said  that 
the  Gospel  had  been  preached  in  vain.    But  they 
are  not  true,  and,  in  the  same  way  that  we 
doubt  the  sportsman's  tale  of  game  too  big  for 
the  compass  of  an  ordinary  vision,  we  doubt 
these  cheerful  pretenders  to  a  moral  infallibiHty 
beyond  our  hidden— but  no  less  real— experience 
of  life.    To  err,  we  admit,  is  human,  but  to 
confess  the  error  belongs  to  the  saint  alone. 
But  whether  we  confess  it  or  whether  we  deny 

it  we  all  know  that  unless  man  has  an  infinite 

capacity  for  being  foolish,  self-renunciation  is 
not  a  victory  and  faith  is  no  virtue. 

2G6 


Religion 

Pascal  has  written  that  there  are  thousands 
who  sin  without  regret,  who  sin  with  gladness, 
who  feel  no  warning  and  no  interior  desire  not 
to  sin.  They  doubted,  hated,  loved,  acted,  felt, 
and  thought  just  as  they  pleased.  Perhaps  they 
were  not  happy,  but  if  they  received  the  punish- 
ment of  wrong-doing,  the  wrong  at  least  was 
committed  out  of  fetters  and  joyously.  It  is 
not  until  men  find  themselves  assailed  by  a 
strong  wish  that  they  perceive  how  very  still 
and  very  small,  all  but  inaudible,  the  still,  small 
voice  can  be.  A  motnent  comes  when  one 
ceases  to  think — one  wills,  and  if  one  is  able 
and  the  will  is  sufficiently  determined,  the 
purpose  is  carried  into  effect.  Temptations  to 
steal,  to  lie,  to  deceive,  to  gamble,  to  excess  in 
drink  and  the  like  cannot  approach  a  certain 
order  of  mind.  But  the  craving  for  knowledge 
and  a  fuller  life — either  in  a  spiritual  or  the 
human  way — is  implanted  ineradicably  in  every 
soul,  and  while  it  may  rest  inert  and  seem 
nullified  in  a  kind  of  apathy,  the  craving  is 
there — to  be  aroused  surely  enough  at  some 
dangerous  hour. 

The  fokce  of  a  temptation  may  be  said  to 
lie  in  its  correspondence  with  some  unconscious 
or  some  admitted  desire.  .  .  .  He  who  has 
even  once  subdued  the  flesh  in  favour  of  the 
spirit  can  never  again  return  in  joy  to  carnal 
things. 

267 


Life  and  To-morrow 


No  CALLING  CAN  be  obeyed  without  suffering, 
but  as  in  the  old  legend  each  man's  cross  was 
found  exquisitely  fitted  to  his  own  back,  so  a 
vocation  is  found  to  be  just  when,  on  the  whole, 
one  has  fewer  misgivings  that  way  than  in  any 
other.  By  the  exercise  of  self-discipline  one 
may  do  much  that  is  not  repulsive  only  but 
suicidal — a  man  may  so  treat  his  spirit  that  it 
becomes  a  sort  of  petrified  vapour.  When, 
however,  he  has  dosed,  reduced,  tortured,  and 
killed  every  vital  instinct  in  his  nature  till  he 
is  an  empty  shape  and  nothing  more,  he  must 
not  flatter  himself  that  he  has  accomplished 
a  great  work.  Life  is  not  for  the  dead,  but  for 
the  living,  and  in  crucifying  our  flesh  we  have 
to  be  quite  certain  that  we  are  playing  no 
ghost's  farce,  inflicting  airy  penalties  on  some 
handfuls  of  harsh  dust. 

Ascetics  do  not  make  themselves  wretched. 
...  A  man  may  choose  to  abstain  from  many 
lawful  things  as  a  satisfaction  for  sins— not 
necessarily  all  his  own.  .  .  .  Again  :  what  is 
needed  in  the  service  of  God?  Weak  knees, 
weak  backs,  and  sickly  minds  ?  No  ;  the  ascetic 
must  learn  endurance,  fortitude,  and  self- 
command.  He  has  to  bring  his  body  not  to 
destruction,  but  into  subjection.  He  must  not 
lose  his  health  but  perfect  it. 

It  is  better  to  be  damned,  in  the  world's 
2G8 


Religion 

opinion,  trying  to  do  the  will  of  God,  than 
saved — doing  nothing  ! 

Asceticism  is  a  faithful  quality.  It  is  won 
by  slow  and  painful  stages,  with  bitter  distress 
and  mortifying  tears,  but  once  really  gained, 
the  losing  is  even  harder  than  the  struggle  for 
its  acquisition. 

Men's  designs  are  never  so  indefinite  and 
confused  as  when  they  meet  with  no  out- 
ward resistance.  A  close  attack  has  proved  the 
salvation  of  most  human  wills  and  roused  the 
energy  of  many  drooping  convictions.  It  is 
seldom  good  that  one  should  enter  into  any 
vocation  very  easily,  sweetly,  and  without 
strife.  The  best  apprenticeships,  whether  eccle- 
siastical or  religious,  or  civil  or  mihtary,  or 
political  or  artistic,  are  never  the  most  calm. 
Whether  we  study  the  lives  of  the  saints  or  the 
lives  of  those  distinguished  in  any  walk  of 
human  endeavour  where  perfection,  in  some 
degree  or  other,  has  been  at  least  the  goal,  we 
always  find  that  the  first  years  of  the  pursuit 
have  been  one  bitter  history  of  temptations, 
doubts,  despondencies,  struggles,  and  agonising 
inconsistencies  of  volition.  To  natures  cold 
originally,  or  extinguished  by  a  false  asceticism, 
many  seeming  acts  of  sacrifice  are  but  the 
subtle  indulgence  of  that  curious  selfishness 
which  is  not  the  more  spiritual  because  it  is 

269 


Life  and  To-morrow 

independent  of  others,  or  the  less  repulsive 
because  it  is  most  contented  in  its  isolation  from 
every  responsibility.    A  renunciation  means  the 
deliberate  putting  away  of  something  keenly 
loved,  anxiously  desired,  or  actually  possessed: 
it  does  not  mean  a  well-weighed  acceptance  of 
the  lesser,  rather  than  the  greater,  trials  of  life. 
Submission  to  the  severities  of  God  whatever 
they  may  be,  obedience  to  authority,  a  com- 
panionless  existence— these  are  the  conditions 
...  of  the  meagre  joy  permitted  to  those  who, 
full  of  intellect,  feeling,  and  kindness,  undertake 
the  rigorous  discipline  of  a  solitary  journey. 
The  world  seldom  takes  account  of  the  unhappy 
sensitiveness  in  devout  souls:  it  thinks  them 
insensible,  not  only  because  they  know  how 
to  keep  silent,  but  how  to  sacrifice  their  secret 
woes.    And  what,  after  all,  are  the  gratified 
expectations  of  any  career  in  comparison  with 
its  hidden  despairs? 

Self-kbstraint  long  practised  will,  in  time, 
leave  little  to  restrain.  The  art  of  dying  daily 
is  slowly  mastered  ;  but,  once  learnt,  it  becomes 
an  instinct— an  unconscious  will  deciding  all 
our  difficulties,  solving  our  griefs. 

It  is  not  hard  to  be  good  when  you  have 
love  and  sympathy  and  encouragement,  but  to 
be  good  when  not  one  soul  cares  whether  you 
live  or  die,  when  your  kindest  thoughts,  your 

270 


Religion 

least  selfish  acts,  your  dearest  sacrifices  are 
treated  alike  with  insult,  cruelty,  and  contempt 
—to  be  good  then,  that  is  the  great  achieve- 
ment. Stand  alone,  be  indifferent  to  smiles  and 
frowns,  keep  your  eyes  steadily  fixed  on  one 
unattainable  ideal  and  condemn  in  yourself  all 
that  falls  short  of  it,  do  that  and  I  will  call  you 
happy ! 

Religion  is  the  one  thing  which  can  keep 
men  and  women  constant  to  their  ideals,  and 
therefore  constant  in  their  human  affections. 

The  justice  of  God  is  severe  ...  but  He  can 
never  make  mistakes.  The  hardest  cruelties  in 
this  life  are  the  mistakes  which  we  commit 
in  judging  others— perhaps  in  judging  ourselves. 

.  SURELY  never  such  need  to  show 

humiliation  as  when  we  are  in  the  presence 
of  a  fallen  idol.  It  is  not  the  god,  which  was 
no  god,  that  suffers,  but  its  former  worshipper, 
who  sees  what  appeared  divinity,  corruption, 
and  what  looked  strength,  rottenness.  And,  in 
at  least  some  slight  degree,  this  terrible  con- 
templation must  be  made  by  all  mortals  who 
place  their  entire  faith  in  mere  flesh  and  blood: 
who  love  the  creature,  which  has  beauty  that 
we  may  desire  it,  more  than  the  Creator  Whom 
no  man  hath  at  any  time  seen.  One  who  wrote 
of  human  affections  with  a  tenderness  and 

271 


Life  and  To-morrow 

understanding  past  comparison -who  knew  its 
infinite  power  and  no  less  infinite  weakness- 
one  who  has  taught  that  by  loving  man  we  best 
know  how  to  love  his  Maker,  has  also  warned 
us—"  Keep  yourselves  from  idols." 

It  is  God  alone  Whom  we  may  never  fear 
to  love  too  well-it  is  God  alone  Who  never 
fails  His  friends-Who  can  never  disappomt  us 
in  His  Goodness! 


272 


INDEX 


s 


INDEX 


Absence,  distance  . 

A  bull-fight  gave  me  the  one 

straight  reply 
A  confidence  should  never  be 

received  .... 
A  course  of  conduct 
A  false  success 

Affection  either  grows  or  dies. 
A  fool  can  give  more  reasons. 
A  girl,  as  a  rule,  seems  to 
believe  .... 
Ah,  if  one  could  but  be  sure 
Ah,  not  for  me      .       .  . 

All  affection  seems  to  have 
been  

All  forced  virtue  . 

All  lovers  are  instinctive 
comedians  .... 

All  men  are  sensible 

All  men  are  very  much  . 

All  men  need  to  have  near 

them  

All  the  phenomena  of  nature . 


PAGE 

The  Gods,  some  Mortals, 
and  Lord  Wickenham    .  35 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness      .      .      .  .109 

Love  and  the  Soul  Hunters  102 
Love  and  the  Soul  Hunters  118 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness .  .  .  .143 
The  School  for  Saints  .  17 
The  Wisdom  of  the  Wise  .  211 

Robert  Orange    .       .  .76 
The  Herb  Moon  .       .  .258 
Dedication  to  A  Study  in 
Temptations  .       .       .  135 

A  Bundle  of  Life  .  .  30 
The  Herb  Moon        .       .  212 

The  Vineyard     ...  14 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness       .       .       .  .141 
Some    Emotions    and  a 
Moral  44 

Robert  Orange  .  .  .67 
The  Science  of  Life    .  .110 


Life  and  To-morrow 


All  the  surprising  . 
All  things  have  a  resurrection 
All  our  finest  ideas. 
All  women  wish  to  see  . 
All  youth  that  is  strong . 
A  love  of  young  people  . 
A   man   may   love  various 
women       .       .       .  c 
A  man  must  be  faithless 
A  man  need  not  be  a  prophet 
A  man's  idea  .... 

A  man's  moral  force 
A  man  with  a  career 
Among  the  many  voices 
An  unmarried  man 

Any  absorbing  intellectual 
work  

Any  woman  can  give  up  the 
world  

A  peasant  once  consulted 

A  person  who  is  not  an  egoist 

A  piqued  woman  . 

A  Platonic  friendship  . 
Are  there  many,  or  any  of  us 
Art  is,  after  all      .       .  • 

Artists  and  poets  . 
Artists,  as  a  class  . 
As  a  lover— an  idealist  . 
As  an  organisation 

As  a  piece  of  architecture 
As  a  rule,  there  can  be  no 

better  adviser 
Asceticism  is  a  faithful  quality 


Eobert  Orange  . 
The  Herb  Moon 
The  School  for  Saints 
The  School  for  Saints 
Eobert  Orange  . 
The  Vineyard 


PAGE 

.  68 
.  216 
.  245 
.  23 
.  84 
.  85 


33 
48 
264 


A  Bundle  of  Life 
The  Sinner's  Comedy 
Eobert  Orange  . 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness 

The  Herb  Moon . 

The  Wisdom  of  the  "Wise 

Love  and  the  Soul  Hunters  216 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness .... 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness .... 

Some    Emotions    and  a 
Moral  .... 

The  Artist's  Life 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness .... 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness .... 

Love  and  the  Soul  Hunters 

Eobert  Orange  . 
Epic  and  Eomance."  The 
Fortnightly  Bevieiu 

Eobert  Orange  . 

The  Artist's  Life 

The  Flute  of  Pan 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness .... 

The  Vineyard 

Some    Emotions    and  a 
Moral  .... 

Eobert  Orange  . 
276 


45 
75 
192 


74 

60 

30 
37 

90 

54 
69 
125 

135 
138 
140 
35 

246 
127 

44 
269 


Index 


Ascetics  do  not  make  them- 
selves wretched  . 
A  self-sufficient  soul 
A  sensitive  nature  dismayed . 

As  for  politics 

As  in  nature  .... 
As  it  is  impossible  to  imagine 

sound  government 
A  successful  libertine  . 
As  women  are  not  trained 
A  tactful  lover 

At   half-past    four   in  the 

morning 
A  true  book  and  a  true  play  . 
A  truth  is  not  to  be  set  aside. 
A  weak  man  submits 
A  well-known  modern  French 

critic  

A   woman   alv/ays  handles 

sarcasm  .... 
A  woman  happily  in  love 
A  woman  is  like  your  shadow 
A  woman  need  not  be  evil  . 

A  woman  never  considers 
love  

A  woman's  instinct 

A  woman's  mission  is  to  play 
the  fool  .... 

A  woman  who  has  not  suffered 


The  School  for  Saints       .  268 


Letters  from  a  Silent  Study 

93 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

ness      .       .       .  . 

101 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

ness      .       .       .  . 

191 

ine  Dcnooi  tor  bamts 

256 

"Epic  and  Eomance."  The 

Fortnightly  Beview 

171 

The  Flute  of  Pan 

45 

The  Grand  Magazine 

50 

The  Serious  Wooing  . 

31 

±LLiperiai  xnaia   .       ,  , 

203 

Letters  from  a  Silent  Study 

164 

Kobert  Orange    .  . 

213 

Eobert  Orange  , 

126 

Letters  from  a  Silent  Study 

164 

A  Study  in  Temptations  . 

57 

The  Serious  Wooing  . 

27 

-Liiuuuiu  v/range    .  , 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

ness .... 

76 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

ness «... 

24 

A  Study  in  Temptations  . 

55 

A  Bundle  of  Life 

28 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

ness «... 

54 

Beauty  is  not  given  .  .  Imperial  India  ...  56 
Because  in  some  of  us  .  .  The  School  for  Saints  .  254 
Beware  of  the  tyranny  .  .  The  School  for  Saints  .  124 
Beware  of  worshipping  false 
images  ,  .  .  .  Tales  about  Temperaments  122 
277 


Life  and  To-morrow 

PAGE 

Beyond  doubt,  the  tendency 

in  English  society  .  .  Imperial  India  .  .  186 
Botticelli  has   been  called 

modern  ....  The  Artist's  Life  .  .  152 
But  if  we  had  loved  each 

other  The  Vineyard    ...  36 


Calm  spectators  of  mortal 
folly  

Columbine  in  tulle 

Comparisons  between  the 
Himalayas  and  the  Alps  . 

Conscious  refinement  may  not 
be  pleasing 

Conversation  between  a  dis- 
illusioned devotee 


Eobert  Orange  .       .  .21 

The  Serious  Wooing  .  .  23 

Imperial  India  .       .  .  207 

The  School  for  Saints  .  211 

A  Bundle  of  Life       .  .  123 


Dante,  by  the  versatility  of 
his  genius  .... 

Death  can  occur  more  than 
once  

Death  in  grotesque  circum- 
stances .... 

Death  itself,  when  at  last  we 
reach  it      .       .       •  • 

Death  never  gathered  pain  . 

Despair — that  tearless,  white 

Dialogue  should  be  a  symbol 
Discretion  generally  means  . 
Disillusions  all  come  from 
within       .       .       .  . 
Do  justice  to  your  brother  . 
Do  not  get  your  nose  . 
Do  not  marry  a  woman 
Don't  you  ever  feel 
Do  we  not  all  live  . 
Do  you  realise 


The  Artist's  Life       .  .  151 

Robert  Orange  .       .  .229 

A  Study  in  Temptations  .  216 

The  School  for  Saints  .  238 

Osbern  and  Ursyne  .  .  238 
The  Gods,  some  Mortals, 

and  Lord  Wickenham  .  228 

The  Academy    .       .  .159 

The  Wisdom  of  the  Wise  .  213 

The  Ambassador       .  .  123 

The  Science  of  Life    .  .  91 

A  Study  in  Temptations  .  212 

The  Vineyard     .       .  .73 

The  Ambassador       .  .  183 

The  School  for  Saints  .  256 

The  Serious  Wooing  .  .  20 
278 


Index 

PAGE 


Do  you  think  that  love  is  a 


plaything  ?  . 

XX  JJVXllKXlKj  \JL  XJilO              •  • 

16 

Duty  in  the  heroic  age  . 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

ness   

215 

Dwellings  closely  packed  to- 

gether .... 

Eobert  Orange  . 

179 

English  people  are  at  their 

best  

Imperial  India  . 

193 

Etiquette       .      .      .  . 

The  Gods,  some  Mortals, 

and  Lord  Wickenham  . 

184 

Every  man — even  the  most 

cynical  .... 

The  Ambassador 

49 

Every  Paradise  is  always 

The  Artist's  Life 

123 

Everything  that  is  good 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

ness       .       .       .  . 

260 

Every  young  man  takes  it 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

for granted 

ness        .       .       .  . 

47 

Extreme  grief  hath  no  fear  . 

Osbern  and  Ursyne  . 

229 

Faust  called  in  all  hell . 

The  Ambassador 

30 

Few    prayers     would  be 

answered  .... 

The  Herb  Moon 

255 

Few  things  are  so  full  of 

mockery  .... 

The  Flute  of  Pan 

214 

vjuu  vvij.1  unuex  s  uanu.  • 

Robert  Orange  . 

Goethe  and  Victor  Hugo 

"  Bysshe  :    A  Dialogue." 

Literature  . 

147 

Great  art  springs  from  great 

convictions 

The  Artist's  Life 

135 

Happiness  consists 

Eobert  Orange  . 

217 

TX        lil                'Till          1  1 

Healthy-mmded  lads  do  not 

sit  

A  Study  in  Temptations  . 

95 

He  could  not  desire 

Eobert  Orange  . 

119 

He  was  not  the  first  bride- 

groom .... 

Eobert  Orange  . 

78 

He  who  seeks  love 

Osbern  and  Ursyne  . 

13 

Hints  belong  to  the 

Eobert  Orange  . 

215 

279 


Life  and 

Hope  is  the  heroic  form 
However  precious  a  sense  of 

humour  may  be  . 
Human  love  is  not  a  single  . 
Humour  is  the  refuge  . 

I  AM  so  sick  of  these  women  . 

I  am  sure  that  sorrow  . 

I  am  thinking  of  the  things  . 

I  cannot  forget 

I  can  see  the  world 

I  care  less  and  less 

I  do  not  say  .... 

If,  after  many  years 

If  all  lovers  .... 
If  a  man  cannot  love 
If  a  man  wants  to  forget 
If  a  woman  wants  to  keep  . 
If  everybody  could  under- 
stand us  . 
If  I  had  an  ideal  . 

If  it  were  not  for  the  egoists  . 
If  marriage  is  not  for  Heaven 
If  no  one  is  completely  happy 
If  St.  Ignatius  had  not  been 

wounded  .  .  .  , 
If  the  gods  have  no  sense  of 

humour  .... 
If  the  mob  insists  . 

If  there  is  an  attractiveness  . 
If  there  were  not  another 

world  

If  the  world  and  the  flesh 
If  tragic  experiences  come  . 
If  we  always  observed  . 
If  women  thought  less  . 


L  o-morrow 

PAGE 

The  School  for  Saints.      .  227 

Love  and  the  Soul  Hunters  102 
The  Vineyard  .  .  .14 
The  Vineyard    .       .  .214 

The  Serious  Wooing  .  .  48 
Eobert  Orange  .  .  .  231 
The  Ambassador  .  .  239 
Eobert  Orange  .  .  .227 
Eobert  Orange  .  .  .113 
Love  and  the  Soul  Hunters  102 
Letters  from  a  Silent  Study  198 
The  Gods,  some  Mortals, 

and  Lord  Wickenham  .  237 
The  Wisdom  of  the  Wise  ,  32 
The  Flute  of  Pan  .  .  90 
The  Wisdom  of  the  Wise  .  48 
The  Herb  Moon.       .       .  48 

Eobert  Orange  .  .  .66 
The  Gods,  some  Mortals, 

and  Lord  Wickenham  .  122 
The  Herb  Moon.  .  .  90 
The  School  for  Saints.  .  79 
The  Vineyard    .       .  .227 

The  Flute  of  Pan      .       .  214 

The  Sinner's  Comedy       .  155 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness 99 

Eobert  Orange   .       .  .67 

The  School  for  Saints  .  251 

The  Vineyard    .       .  .104 

The  Artist's  Life       .  .  228 

The  Herb  Moon .       .  .212 

The  Wisdom  of  the  Wise  .  76 


Index 


If  you  are  convinced 

If  you  give  in  to  prejudices  . 

If  you  once  begin  wandering. 

I  have  my  dreams  and  the 
stars 

I  have  watched  the  sea . 
I  hear  and  read  much  stuff  . 
Imaginative  minds,  or  minds 
warped  .... 
In  all  such  relations 


In  all  that  a  man  can  bring 
In  controlhng 
Individual  contentment. 

In  educating  . 

In  every  woman  . 

In  Homer  the  characters 

In  immature  women 

In  marriage  one  does  not 
In  order  to  describe  life. 
In  public  life  . 
Instinct  in  choosing 
Interesting  things  . 
In  that  part  of  the  world 
In  the  sixteenth  century 

In  trivial  matters  . 
Is  a  wish  remaining 

I  seem  to  have  spent  my  life 

Is  it  so  easy  . 

Is  night  less  night . 

Is  not  the  fairy  tale 


The  Serious  Wooing  . 
The  Serious  Wooing  . 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi 
ness. 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness 

A  Eepentance  . 
The  Flute  of  Pan 


The  Vineyard  . 
.    The  Gods,  some  Mortals, 
and  Lord  Wickenham  . 
.    Eobert  Orange  . 
.    Kobert  Orange  . 
.    The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness  

.  The  Artist's  Life  . 
.  The  School  for  Saints 
.    "  Epic  and  Eomance."  Tlie 

Fortnightly  Beview 
.    The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness 

.  Eobert  Orange  . 
.  The  Artist's  Life 
.  Eobert  Orange  . 
.  The  Artist's  Life 
,  A  Bundle  of  Life 
.    The  Vineyard 

"  Bysshe  :    A  Dialogue." 
Literature 
,    The  School  for  Saints 
Epilogue  to  A  Bundle  of 
Life       .       .       .  . 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness  

Eobert  Orange  . 
Eobert  Orange  . 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness. .... 

281 


PAGE 
97 

97 

124 

144 
107 

85 

177 

69 
264 
83 

122 
138 
55 

148 

54 
73 
136 
111 
103 
212 
177 

147 


81 

121 

237 
226 

53 


Life  and  To-morrow 


Is  there  a  man  .  .  . 
Is  there  any  earthly  reason  . 

It  always  takes  three  . 
It  comes  to  this 
I  think  it  would  be 
I  thought  at  one  time  . 

It  is  all  very  hard  . 
It  is  almost  as  easy 
It  is  always  disastrous  . 
It  is  always  easy  . 
It  is  always  terrible 

It  is  an  obvious  truism  . 
It  is  a  question 
It  is  better  to  be  damned 
It  is  called  .... 

It  is  God  alone 

It  is  hard  to  be  just 

It  is  mothers  and  sisters 
It  is  much  more  difficult 
It  is  not  hard  to  be  good 
It  is  not  the  merely  cold 

It  is  not  the  past  alone  . 
It  is  not  until  everything 

It  is  often  held 
It  is  one  thing 

It  is  only  a  very  unselfish  man 
It  is  only  the  Church  of  Eome 
It  is  only  the  woman  . 

It  is  something  resembling 
happiness  .       .       .  . 
It  is  something  to  learn. 


PAGE 

Osbern  and  Ursyne    .      .  31 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness  261 

Kobert  Orange   .       .  .63 
The  Artist's  Life       .       .  36 
Letters  from  a  Silent  Study  197 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness 112 

Eobert  Orange  .  .  .259 
A  Study  in  Temptations  .  211 
A  Bundle  of  Life  .  .  101 
The  School  for  Saints.  .  231 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness 228 

A  Study  in  Temptations  .  34 
The  School  for  Saints.  .  132 
Eobert  Orange  .  .  .  268 
"  Love  and  Fortune."  The 

Daily  Mail  .      .  .74 
A  Eepentance    .       .       .  272 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness 229 

The  Herb  Moon .       .       .  43 
Eobert  Orange   .       .       .  125 
A  Bundle  of  Life       .       .  270 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness 55 

The  Vineyard  .  .  .113 
Some    Emotions    and  a 

Moral  .  .  .  .228 
Love  and  the  Soul  Hunters  224 
The  School  for  Saints.  .  183 
The  Sinner's  Comedy.  .  31 
The  School  for  Samts  .  249 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness 67 


Eobert  Orange 
Eobert  Orange 
282 


123 
91 


Index 


PAGE 


It  is  strange  that  Englishmen 

Love  and  the  Soul  Hunters  195 

It  is  the  weak,  effeminate 

creature  .... 

Bobert  Orange  . 

50 

It  is  to  me  quite  clear  . 

The  Flute  of  Pan 

117 

It  is  useful  to  hear. 

The  School  for  Saints. 

260 

It  is  very  easy  to  attach 

The  Vineyard 

81 

It  may  be  a  fact 

Eobert  Orange  . 

15 

It  may  be  impossible  . 

The  Science  of  Life 

139 

It  might  seem 

The  School  for  Saints. 

96 

I  used  to  wonder  . 

The  Vineyard 

45 

It  was  a  little  soul. 

The  School  for  Saints. 

105 

Jealousy  founded  on  reason  . 

The  Flute  of  Pan 

98 

J  ust  as  the  imprudent  man  . 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

ness.      .       .       .  . 

99 

Kali  remains.  . 

Imperial  India  . 

201 

Let  heart-sickness  pass. 

Eobert  Orange  . 

227 

Life  and  love .... 

The  Gods,  some  Mortals, 

and  Lord  Wickenham 

16 

Life  is  a  shell. 

Tales  about  Temperaments 

110 

Life  is  not  .... 

The  School  for  Saints. 

107 

Love  comes  to  man 

The  Sinner's  Comedy. 

33 

Love  in  some  natures  . 

The  School  for  Saints 

15 

Love  is  a  state 

The  Herb  Moon. 

22 

Love  is  so  mysterious  . 

A  Bundle  of  Life 

11 

Love  that  is  secret. 

Osbern  and  Ursyne  . 

35 

Love,  the  obliteration  . 

Osbern  and  Ursyne 

21 

Man  is  ever  miserly 

The  Gods,  some  Mortals, 

and  Lord  Wickenham 

119 

Man  is  known  to  God  . 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

ness  

255 

Many  Anglo-Saxon  writers  . 

"  Modern  French  Plays," 

The  Anglo-Saxon  Beview 

163 

Many  descriptions  have  been 

written  .... 

Imperial  India  . 

205 

Many  good  people . 

The  Vineyard 

101 

Life  and  To-morrow 


PAGE 


Many  men  have  ability  . 

Robert  Orange  . 

89 

Many  of  the  observant  . 

The  Science  of  Life  . 

198 

Many  well-written .  . 

Letters  from  a  Silent  Study  149 

Many  women  enjoy 

The  Vineyard 

DO 

Marriage  is  a  discipline  . 

The  Wisdom  of  the  Wise  . 

Yd 

Marriage  is  an  incomparable . 

The  Dream  and  the  busi- 

ness  

79 

Marriage  is  like  a  good  pie  . 

The  Ambassador. 

Marriage  rarely  does  prove 

Some    Emotions    and  a 

anything  .... 

Moral  .... 

80 

Men,    after    considering  a 

woman  .... 

The  Wisdom  of  the  Wise  . 

32 

Men  always  say 

The  Gods,  some  Mortals, 

and  Lord  W^ickenham  . 

31 

Men  are  all  the  same  . 

The  Herb  Moon . 

44 

Men  are  not  so  weak 

The  Herb  Moon . 

48 

Men  are  punished  . 

Love  and  the  Soul  Hunters  112 

Men  are  the  dreamers  . 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

ness. .... 

4-7 

Men  are  weak. 

The  Wisdom  of  the  Wise  . 

32 

Men  attach  an  undue  import- 

ance   

The  School  for  Saints. 

262 

Men  cannot  be  happy  . 

Robert  Orange   .       .  . 

115 

Men  divide  women. 

Some    Emotions    and  a 

Moral  .... 

50 

Men  do  not  like  their  wives  . 

A  Study  in  Temptations  . 

49 

Men  forget  what  they  read  . 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

ness  

260 

Men  have  no  real  confidence . 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

ness  

49 

Men  heap  together. 

The  Sinner's  Comedy. 

218 

Men,  I  beneve,  to  be  truly 

happy  

The  Ambassador 

47 

Men  like  women  . 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

ness  

49 

Men  may  still  find. 

A  Bundle  of  Life. 

29 

Men's  designs  are  never 

Robert  Orange  . 

269 

Men  who  have  never  really 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

loved . 

ness  

73 

284 

Index 


Men  who  look  before  they  leap 

Men  who  will  watch 
Men  will  forgive  any  fault 
Men  will  own  willingly  . 
Mind  in  the  long  run 

Money  makes  a  difference 
Moods  change 

Most  men  have  veiled  por- 
traits   

Most  of  the  world's  sorrow  . 
Most  true  things  . 
My  dear  Stonyhurst 

Nature  is  not  so  easy  . 

Never  trust  a  man's  opinions. 

Never  was  talk  so  bitter- 
sweet   

No  calling  can  be  obeyed 
without  suffering. 

No  critic  lacking  . 

No  doubt  some  of  the  most 
beautiful  .... 
No  great  painter  . 
No  man  ever  seemed 
No  man  is  the  better  . 

No  man  knows  his  language  . 
No  man  wants 

Nonconformity  in  England  . 

No  one  can  study  Hegel 
No  one  is  born  a  husband 
No  powerful  being. 
No  stage  is  so  degrading 


PAGE 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness 45 

Letters  from  a  Silent  Study  92 
Love  and  the  Soul  Hunters  45 
The  School  for  Saints.       .  265 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness 215 

The  Vineyard  .  .  .224 
The  Flute  of  Pan      .       .  227 

The  School  for  Saints.  .  79 

The  Serious  Wooing  .  .  223 

The  Serious  Wooing  .  .  213 

The  Serious  Wooing  .  .  241 

The  Gods,  some  Mortals, 

and  Lord  Wickenham  .  117 
A  Bundle  of  Life       .       .  33 

Osbern  and  Ursyne   .       .  29 

Eobert  Orange  .       .       .  268 
"  Epic  and  Eomance."  The 
Fortnightly  Beview       .  173 

The  Vineyard    .       .  .225 
The  Artist's  Life       .      .  150 
The  Artist's  Life       .      .  138 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness 144 

The  Sinner's  Comedy       .  216 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness 216 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness 246 

The  School  for  Saints  .  19 
A  Study  in  Temptations  .  96 
Robert  Orange  .  .  .35 
Tales  about  Temperaments  212 


285 


Life  and  To-morrow 


Not  all  are  blind  . 
Nothing  in  Nature  is  solitary 
No  training,  no  matter  . 
Now,  no  one  can  act .  . 
No  woman  has  anything  to 

fear  

No  woman  incapable 

No  yomig  man  can  be  happy. 


PAGE 

Osbern  and  Ursyne  .  .  17 
The  Herb  Moon  .  .  .65 
The  Serious  Wooing  .  .  26 
Letters  from  a  Silent  Study  166 

A  Bundle  of  Life  .  .  57 
"Ideal  Friendships."  The 

Daily  Mail    .       .  .68 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness      ....  262 


Of  course,  entertamment 
Of  di-eamers  there  are  many 

kinds  

Of  the  music-lovers 

Oh,  those  long  days 
Once  I  foimd  a  speech  . 
Once  I  saw  a  mother  . 

One  camiot  bear  one's  neigh- 
bour's burdens  . 
One  cannot  cheat  Natm'e 
One  does  not  fall  in  love 

One  has  to  be  very  strong  . 
One  is  often  tormented  . 

One  is  told  so  much 
One  may  love  a  sinner  . 

One  true  love . 

One  way  of  meeting  sorrow 

Only  very  dangerous  people 

Other  countries 

Our  greatest  passions  . 


The  Ambassador 


181 


The  Serious  Wooing  .  .  94 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness. .  .  .  •  214 
The  Herb  Moon  .  .  .178 
Preface  to  The  Ambassador  161 
"  Love  and  Fortune."  The 
Daily  Mail     .       .  .60 

Letters  from  a  Silent  Study  104 
Letters  from  a  Silent  Study  110 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness 2^ 

Robert  Orange   .       .       .  230 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness.      ....  122 
Letters  from  a  Silent  Study  92 
The  Gods,  some  Moi-tals, 

and  Lord  Wickenham    .  100 
The  Artist's  Life       .       .  o3 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness 224 

,    Some    Emotions    and  a 

Moral      .       .       .  .213 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness.      ....  195 
.    Love  and  the  Soul  Hunters  98 
286 


Index 

PAGE 

O,  weep,  my  heart        .      .    The  Herb  Moon  .      .      .  223 


Pain  and  despair  . 
Pan  was  a  heathen  god  . 
Pascal  has  written . 
Passionate  natures. 
Passions  and  enthusiasms 
Patrons  of  the  drama  . 

People  are  so  fond . 

People  are  utterly  dissimilar . 

People   die  of  long,  cruel, 

weary  

People  get  to  like  a  soul. 
People  go  into  society  . 
People  in  general  cling  . 
People  who  are  for  ever  talking 

People  who  are  only 

People  who  have  lived  . 
Perfect  friendship  . 
Perhaps  it  is  as  well 
Perhaps  the  most  remarkable 
Philosophy  is  an  amusement. 
Pleasures  are  so  much  . 

Poetry — and  most  of  all. 
Poets,  reformers  . 

Political  reputations 
Portraiture,  whether  in  epic  . 
Put  the  thought  of  might- 
have-beens  .... 


The  Sinner's  Comedy.  .  229 
The  Flute  of  Pan  .  .  113 
Eobert  Orange  .  .  .267 
Love  and  the  Soul  Hunters  98 
Love  and  the  Soul  Hunters  217 
"  Modern  French  Plays." 

The  Anglo-Saxon  Bev lew  157 
Some    Emotions    and  a 

Moral     .       .       .  .211 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness 90 

The  Serious  Wooing  .  .  237 
Love  and  the  Soul  Hunters  212 
The  Flute  of  Pan  .  .  184 
Robert  Orange  .  .  .212 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness 95 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 


ness. ....  186 
The  School  for  Saints.  .  17 
A  Study  in  Temptations  .  66 
A  Bundle  of  Life  .  .  30 
American  Impressions  .  219 
The  Herb  Moon  .  .  .214 
The  Gods,  some  Mortals, 

and  Lord  Wickenham     .  225 
The  Herb  Moon.       .       .  138 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness 213 

The  Wisdom  of  the  Wise  .  191 
The  Artist's  Life       .  .136 


Love  and  the  Soul  Hunters  124 


Rapid  changes  of  mood .      .   The  School  for  Saints.      .  140 

287 


Life  and  To-morrow 

PAGE 

The  Science  of  Life  .  .  124 
The  Vineyard  .  .  .124 
The  Science  of  Life  .  .  257 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness ....  262 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness      .       .       .  -244 


Eeahties  are  not  of  necessity. 
Eeahty  to  some  dreamers 
Eeduced  to  its  very  simplest. 
Eehgion  comes  into  every  act 


Eeligionisthe  one  thing  which 
can  give  .... 

Eeligion  is  the  one  thing  which 
can  keep  .... 

Eenan,  who  was  himself 

Eest  to  their  spirits 

Eomance  seems  to  have  died 
out  

Eomance  will  add  , 

Euskin  has  insisted 

Sameness  of  thought 

Self-discipline  seems 
Self-doubt  has  no  part  . 
Self-restraint  long  practised  . 

Sentimentality  has  all  but  de- 
stroyed .... 
Shakespeare  never  draws 
She  began  to  strike  out  chords 

Singers  often  have  songs 
So-called  Platonics. 
Society  is  run  by  women 

Society  itself  does  not  practise 
So  far  our  strictly  national  . 
So  long  as  one  can . 
So  many  of  us 

So  many  men  are  degraded  . 
Some  are  the  prisoners  . 
Some  kinds  of  knowledge 


The  School  for  Saints.  .  271 

The  School  for  Saints.  .  128 

Osbern  and  Ursyne    .  .  235 

The  Vineyard    .       .  .37 

Eobert  Orange  .       .  .  127 

The  Science  of  Life   .  .  118 


The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness 105 

Eobert  Orange  .       .  .264 
Eobert  Orange  .       .  .16 
The  Gods,  some  Mortals, 
and  Lord  Wickenham    .  270 

The  Serious  Wooing  .  .  118 
The  Serious  Wooing  .  .  148 
The  Gods,  some  Mortals, 

and  Lord  Wickenham    .  152 
Letters  from  a  Silent  Study  150 
Eobert  Orange  .      .  .69 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness 184 

Eobert  Orange  .  .  .184 
Letters  from  a  Silent  Study  165 
The  Flute  of  Pan  .  .  265 
The  Gods,  some  Mortals, 

and  Lord  Wickenham    .  132 
The  School  for  Saints.       .  122 
The  Serious  Wooing  .       ,  218 
A  Study  in  Temptations    .  211 
288 


Index 


PAGB 

Some  men  take  the  Church  . 

The  Gods,  some  Mortals, 

and  Lord  Wickenham 

36 

Some  natures  attain 

The  School  for  Saints 

255 

Some  thoughts  are  as  impalp- 

able   

Robert  Orange  . 

216 

Sometimes  it  seems 

A  Study  in  Temptations  . 

109 

Sometimes  the  soul  speaks 

first  .  . 

Robert  Orange  . 

128 

Some  women  are  jealous 

Robert  Orange  . 

52 

Some  women  have 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

ness      .       .       .  . 

28 

Sorrow  will  either  destroy 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

ness      .       .       .  . 

224 

Stick  to  the  Immortals  . 

The  Sinner's  Comedy 

101 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

pressed 

ness       .       .       .  . 

234 

Sympathy  is  the  one  emotion 

Some  Emotions  and  a  Moral  103 

Take   the    two  most  dis- 

tinguished .... 

The  Academy 

145 

Tattle  over  an  obscure  tea- 

table   

The  Vineyard 

179 

That  fastidious  elusive  in- 

The Dream  and  the  Busi- 

stinct 

ness       ,       .       .  . 

94 

That  moment  of  humility 

Robert  Orange  . 

18 

That's  a  mistake  . 

The  Sinner's  Comedy. 

48 

The  artist  brings  himself 

The  Artist's  Life 

137 

The  artistic  profession  . 

The  Sinner's  Comedy. 

145 

The  artistic  temperament 

A  Study  in  Temptations  . 

139 

The  artist's  life  is  unending 

labour  

The  Artist's  Life 

153 

The  Arts  are  but  drugs  . 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

ness  

214 

The  best  of  women 

The  Herb  Moon  . 

58 

The  best  possible  training  . 

The  Artist's  Life. 

138 

The  Catholic  ideal . 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

ness  

73 

The  Church  herself 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

ness  

249 

289  X 


Life  and  To-morrow 


The  cloistered  lif e  . 

The  condition  of  New  York  . 

The    consequences    of  any 

action  

The  critic  must  have 

The  Devil  can  give  us  nothing 
The  distinction  between. 

The  Divinity  of  Christ  . 
The  emotional  sex . 
The  EngHsh  can  never  deal  . 
The  essential  in  conversation. 
The  feeling  which  is  worse  . 

The  first  exchange. 
The  first  impression 
The  force  of  a  great  tempta- 
tion   

The  genius  of  hospitality 

The  greatest  leaders 

The  great  gift  of  self-know- 


the 


PAGE 

The  School  for  Saints  .  253 
"  American  Impressions  " .  218 


Letters  from  a  Silent  Study 
Epic  and  Eomance."  Tlie 

Fortnightly  Beview 
The  School  for  Sauits. 
The  Gods,  some  Mortals, 

and  Lord  Wickenham  . 
Eobert  Orange  . 
The  School  for  Samts 
Eobert  Orange  . 
The  Flute  of  Pan 
The  Gods,  some  Mortals, 

and  Lord  "Wickenham  . 
The  School  for  Samts. 
Imperial  India  . 

The  School  for  Saints. 
The  Gods,  some  Mortals, 
and  Lord  "Wickenham  . 
The  School  for  Sauits. 


The  great  ruthless  public 
The  great  thing  is  to  love 
The  ideaUst  driven 
The  immortal  spirit 
The  individual  is  but 

symbol  .... 
The  intuition  which  comes  . 
The  joy  of  hving  . 
The  justice  of  God . 
The  knowledge  which  depends 
The  laws  whose  life 

The  man  of  letters. 
The  materialised  ideal  . 


197 

171 
261 

217 
254 

53 
195 

41 

226 
66 
204 

267 

184 
126 


A  Study  m  Temptations  .  89 
Letters  from  a  Silent  Study  126 


The  Ambassador 
Eobert  Orange  . 
The  School  for  Saints. 

The  Vineyard 
Eobert  Orange  . 
The  Wisdom  of  the  Wise  . 
Eobert  Orange  . 
Eobert  Orange  . 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness .... 
A  Bundle  of  Life 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 


ness 


13 
131 
245 

103 
67 
48 
271 
223 

112 
145 

123 


290 


Index 


The  maternal  qualities  . 

The  men  who  struggle  . 

The  modern  is  always  . 

The  multiplication  of  unneces- 
sary words .... 

The  night  is  gone  . 

The  ordinary  marriage  . 

The  passion  of  love 

The  people  who  make  me 
nervous  .... 

The  people  who  suffer  . 

The  philosopher  may  be  de- 
livered .... 
The  precocious  intelligence  . 
The  prettier  the  woman 
The  Protestants  insist  . 
The  race  is  not  to  the  swift  . 
There  are  at  present 

There  are  certain  things 
There  are  certain  utterances . 
There  are  many  duties  . 
There  are  many  women. 

There  are  no  triumphs  . 
There  are  signs  in  the  land  . 
There  are  such  crowds  . 

There  are  thoughts 
There  are  two  ways 
There  are  very  few  men 
There  are  women  who  will  . 
There  is  a  force 
There  is  a  love  can  find . 
There  is  an  invertebrate 
There  is  an  old  Hindoo  pro- 
verb   


PAGE 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

ness  

25 

The  School  for  Samts. 

A  rJundle  oi  Jjiie 

1  or: 

Letters  from  a  Silent  Study 

1  OA 

Osbern  and  Ursyne  . 

no  K 

The  bchooi  for  bamts 

r70 

Eobert  Orange  . 

1  K 
10 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

ness .... 

185 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

ness .... 

2rZo 

The  Vineyard 

yy 

The  School  for  Saints.  . 

^0 

ine  xiiuue  ot  Iran 

OD 

Ine  Dcnool  lOr  foamts. 

A  Study  in  Temptations  . 

yb 

Modern  French  Plays." 

Tlie  A-Tiglo-Sdxou  jRevicw 

lou 

Robert  Orange  . 

Robert  Orange  . 

At 

Robert  Orange  . 

liU 

*' Ideal  rrienasnips.     I  ne 

Daily  Mail 

Robert  Orange  . 

133 

Letters  from  a  Silent  Study 

198 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

ness      .      .      .  . 

00 

ine  bcnool  tor  bamts 

not 

Love  and  the  Soul  Hunters 

on 

A  Study  in  Temptations  . 

106 

Osbern  and  Ursyne  . 

22 

Imperial  India  . 

205 

uo 

The  Serious  Wooing  . 

212 

Robert  Orange  . 

121 

Life  and 

There  is  a  story  told 

There  is  a  time     .  . 

There  is  a  tone  of  the  voice  . 

There  is  but  one  way  . 
There  is  no  loving  kmdness  . 
There  is  nothing  left 
There  is  nothing  modern 
There  is  nothing  more  fasci- 
nating   

There  is  nothing  more  fatal  . 
There  is  nothing  so  fascinating 
There  is  nothing  to  be  said  . 
There  is  no  virtue  so  sublime 
There  is  one  form  . 
There  is  one  glory  . 
There  is  probably  one  . 

There  is  something  in  beauty 
There's  much  for  men  to  do  . 
There  was  never  a  Samson  . 

There  was  never  at  any  time. 

The  saints  were  always . 
The  secret  of  managing  a  man 
The  self-mastered  dread 
These  literary  and  artistic 
people       .       .       .  . 
The  sense  of  nearness  . 

These  young  people 
The  Spanish  .       .       .  • 
The  spirit  invisible  wears 
The  supreme  difficulty  . 
The  terrible  irony  of  life 
The  terrorless       .       .  • 


To-morrow 

PAGE 

Preface  to  A  Study  in  Temp- 
tations   .       .       .  .89 
The  Gods,  some  Mortals, 

and  Lord  Wickenham  .  217 
The  Gods,  some  Mortals, 

and  Lord  Wickenham  .  16 
Robert  Orange  .  .  .230 
The  Vineyard  .  .  .177 
Osbern  and  Ursyne  .  .  221 
Robert  Orange  .  .  .  128 
Some  Emotions  and  a 
Moral  .  .  .  .  215 
.  Robert  Orange  .  .  .  191 
A  Bundle  of  Life  .  .  209 
Letters  from  a  Silent  Study  168 
A  Study  in  Temptations  .  214 
The  Vineyard  .  .  .19 
A  Bundle  of  Life  .  .  20 
"  Epic  and  Romance."  The 

Fortnightly  Bevieiv  .  136 
Robert  Orange  .  .  .18 
Osbern  and  Ursyne  .  .  229 
Some    Emotions    and  a 

Moral  ....  45 
"  Plot  and  Dialogue."  The 

Academy  .  .  .  159 
Robert  Orange  .  .  .140 
The  Sinner's  Comedy.  .  43 
The  Vineyard  .  .  .20 
Some    Emotions    and  a 

Moral  .  .  .  .133 
The  Gods,  some  Mortals, 

and  Lord  Wickenham  .  245 
The  Herb  Moon.  .  .  83 
Letters  from  a  Silent  Study  220 
Robert  Orange  .  .  .105 
A  Bundle  of  Life  .  .  52 
The  School  for  Saints  .  122 
Robert  Orange  .  .  .  218 
292 


Index 


PAGC 

The  theatre  in  England . 

Eobert  Orange  . 

157 

The  two  things  in  life  . 

Kobert  Orange  . 

110 

The  two  things  which  ati'ecit 

Kobert  Orange  . 

244 

The  ungovernable  charm 

Letters  from  a  Silent  Study 

100 

The  veritable  world 

Kobert  Orange  . 

217 

The  want  of  sympathy  . 

The  Flute  of  Pan 

53 

The  weak  or  the  strong  . 

The  Flute  of  Pan 

96 

The  world  has  no  imagina- 

The Dream  and  the  Busi- 

263 

tion 

ness        .       .       .  . 

The  world  is  better  lost. 

Eobert  Orange  . 

81 

The  world  rewards  the  beauti- 

ful   

Robert  Orange  . 

145 

The  youngest  girl  . 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

23 

ness       .       .       .  . 

The  young  have  an  instinctive 

The  Science  of  Life  . 

83 

The  young  of  both  sexes 

The  Vineyard 

14 

They  say  old  people 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

85 

ness       .       .       .  . 

They  say  that  love 

The  Flute  of  Pan 

20 

This  ache  to  be  amused. 

A  Bundle  of  Life 

13 

This  is  only  sorrow 

Epilogue  to  A  Bundle  of 

232 

Life  

Those  in  this  country  . 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

ness      .       .       .  . 

192 

Those  who  can  be  disillusioned 

Robert  Orange  . 

123 

Those  who  despise. 

The  Flute  of  Pan 

213 

Those  who  have  made  . 

The  Ambassador 

80 

Those  who  have  substituted  . 

The  School  for  Saints 

101 

To  be  happy  .... 

The  Serious  Wooing  . 

227 

To  be  rising  .... 

Some    Emotions    and  a 

Moral      .       .       .  . 

191 

To  be  sane  .... 

The  Flute  of  Pan 

43 

To  flirt  with  spirit .       .  . 

The  Ambassador 

184 

To  know  a  truth  . 

The  Vineyard  . 

18 

To  love  is  to  know . 

The  School  for  Saints. 

16 

To  play  to  the  gallery  . 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

215 

ness  

To  reserved  natures 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

ness.      .       .       .  . 

105 

Life  and  To-morrow 


To  those  who  are  unhappy  . 
To  watch  the  world 
To  weigh  other  minds  . 
Treachery  kills  a  woman's  love 
Trouble  comes 
True  love  must  rest 

Up,  up,  Thou  hast  a  flight  . 

Vulgarity  has  a  positive 
Vulgarity,  like  beauty  . 

Watch  the  sky 
We  all  know  that  Proper  Pride 
We  have  reached  the  stage  . 
We  have  surely  never  such 

need  

We  have  to  look  upon  this 

world  

We  live  at  a  time  . 
We  resent  disillusions  . 

We  take  our  joys  . 
What  a  cruel  world  .  . 
What  do  you  think  of  . 
Whatever  one  says  of  life 

What  is  duty? 

What  is  it  that  can  bear 

What  is  the  good  of  all  this  . 

What  is  the  matter 
What  rubbish  is  talked  . 
When  uEschylus  and  Sopho- 
cles 

When  a  great  friendship 
When  all  the  worldly  maxims 
When  a  man  gets  an  idea 
When  a  man  is  at  most  pains 


PAGE 

Eobert  Orange  .  .  .232 
The  Herb  Moon .  .  .175 
The  School  for  Saints.  .  99 
The  Vineyard.  ...  32 
The  Serious  Wooing  .  .  74 
Eobert  Orange  .       .  .15 

Osbern  and  Ursyne  .      .  169 


Letters  from  a  Silent  Study  166 
Love  and  the  Soul  Hunters  185 

Robert  Orange  .  .  .87 
Letters  from  a  Silent  Study  91 


The  School  for  Saints       .  196 

A  Studj  in  Temptations   .  271 

Robert  Orange  .  .  .239 
The  Artist's  Life  .  .  199 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness ....  123 
The  Herb  Moon.  .  .  216 
The  Flute  of  Pan  .  .  31 
Osbern  and  Ursyne  .  .  221 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness .  .  .  .237 
Robert  Orange  .       .       .  215 


The  Wisdom  of  the  Wise  .  65 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness ....  262 
The  Science  of  Life  .  .  124 
The  Vineyard  .  .  .139 
"  Plot  and  Dialogue."  The 

Academy,  .  .  .158 
Love  and  the  Soul  Hunters  65 
The  Ambassador  .  .  105 
The  Sinner's  Comedy.  .  43 
A  Study  in  Temptations    .  44 


Index 


When  a  man  loves  a  woman  . 
When  a  man  loses  his  head  . 

When  an  unpleasant  truth  . 

When  a  real  passion 
When  a  woman  is  the  first  . 
When  enthusiasm  grows  Ian- 

g^^  

Whenever  I  read  a  book 

When  I  hear  a  sermon  . 
When  I  think  that  Ahnighty 
God 

When  love  and  wisdom  fight 

When  one  human  being  at- 
tains   

When  one  only 

When  the  emotions  awake  . 

When  the  heart  has  a  certain 

When  the  man  appears . 
When  the  moment  comes 

When  two  beings  love  . 
When  uncontrollable  grief  . 
When  we  are  at  our  worst  . 
When  will  great  and  other 

ladies  

When  women  love . 

When  you  once  talk 
Where  can  the  disenchanted 
go? 

Where's  the  harm  . 
While  human  nature 


The  Wisdom  of  the  Wise  . 
Some    Emotions    and  a 

Moral  .... 
The  Gods,  some  Mortals, 

and  Lord  Wickenham  . 
Tales  about  Temperaments 
The  School  for  Saints. 

The  Serious  Wooing  . 
"  Bysshe  :    A  Dialogue." 

Literature 
Bobert  Orange  . 

Bysshe  :    A  Dialogue." 

Literature 
The  Gods,  some  Mortals, 

and  Lord  Wickenham  . 


PAGE 

82 

44 

212 
98 

35 

213 

146 
260 

146 

16 


The  Vineyard  . 

The  Flute  of  Pan 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness      .      .  .  • 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness 

The  Flute  of  Pan 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness .... 
Love  and  the  Soul  Hunters 
The  Vineyard  . 
A  Eepentance  . 

The  School  for  Saints 
The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness .... 
Eobert  Orange   .       .  . 

The  Vineyard 
Osbern  and  Ursyne  . 
Ideal  Friendships."  The 
Daily  Mail 
295 


100 
42 

215 

225 
42 

226 
21 
228 
105 

22 

22 
15 

124 
83 

69 


Life  and 

While  we  exist 
Why  are  people 
Why  does  nothing  seem 

Why  dost  thou  love  me  ? 
Why  do  women  marry  ? 
Why  waste  one's  time  . 

Woman  will  swear  much 
Women  and  men  also  . 

Women  are  always  on  the 
defensive  . 

Women  are  full  of  kindness  . 

Women  are  so  afraid  . 

Women  fascinate  the  hearts  . 

Women  have  boundless  faith. 

Women,  in  every  disappoint- 
ment   

Women  like  display 

Women  love  more  wildly 
Women  never  question 
Women  of  indolent 

Women  respect  a  man  . 

Women  seem  to  exhaust 
Women    should    work  for 

women 
Women  who  possess 
Work  I    Oh,  to  escape  . 


1  o-morrow 

PAGE 

A  Bundle  of  Life 

96 

The  Ambassador 

105 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

226 

Osbern  and  Ursyne  . 

29 

The  Flute  of  Pan 

76 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

183 

The  Serious  Wooing  . 

23 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

41 

The  Flute  of  Pan 

55 

Osbern  and  Ursyne  . 

53 

Love  and  the  Soul  Hunters 

51 

Eobert  Orange  . 

53 

The  Sinner's  Comedy. 

57 

Eobert  Orange  , 

51 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

ness .... 

57 

The  Vineyard 

24 

The  Grand  Magazine 

39 

The  Gods,  some  Mortals, 

and  Lord  Wickenham  . 

52 

The  Gods,  some  Mortals, 

and  Lord  Wickenham 

57 

The  Grand  Magazine 

58 

The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 

ness .... 

55 

A  Study  in  Temptations  , 

57 

The  Gods,  some  Mortals, 

and  Lord  Wickenham    .  131 


You  cannot  be  loyal      .       .    The  Serious  Wooing  .       .  97 
You  cannot  enjoy  .       .       .    The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness       .       .       .  .54 
You  may  cut  off  your  hand  .    Some    Emotions    and  a 

Moral      .       .       .  .34 

296 


Index 

PAGE 

You  may  know  a  man  .       .    Some    Emotions    and  a 

Moral     ....  49 
You  might  as  well  flirt  .       .    Eobert  Orange  .        .       .  79 
You  must  see  life  .       .       .The  Dream  and  the  Busi- 
ness      ....  113 
Young  women  should  realise.    "  Ideal  Friendships."  The 

DmhjMail  ...  69 
Your  chances  in  the  House  .  The  School  for  Saints  .  189 
Youth  is  naturally  impatient.    A  Study  in  Temptations    .  84 


297 


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John  Oliver  Hobbes  a  recognized  position  as  a  master  of  epigram  and 
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"  As  her  star  has  been  sudden  in  its  rise  so  may  It  stay  long  with  us  ^ 
Some  day  she  may  give  us  something  better  than  these  tingling,  pulsing, 
mocking,  epigrammatic  morsels." — Times, 

*'  There  are  several  literary  ladies,  of  recent  origin,  who  have  tried 
to  come  up  to  the  society  ideal ;  but  John  Oliver  Hobbes  is  by  far  the 
best  writer  of  them  all,  by  far  the  most  capable  artist  in  fiction.  .  ,  . 
She  is  clever  enough  for  anything." — Saturday  Review. 


THE  HERB  MOON 

BY 

JOHN  OLIVER  HOBBES 

Third  Edition,  Crown  8x^0.,  cloth ^  Qst 

"  The  jaded  reader  who  needs  sauce  for  his  literary  appetite  cannot 
do  better  than  buy  *  The  Herb  Moon.'  ''-^LiUrary  World. 

"  A  book  to  hail  with  mmc  than  conamon  pleasure.  The  epigram- 
matic quality,  the  power  of  rapid  analysis  and  brilliant  presentation 
are  there,  and  added  to  these  a  less  definable  quality,  only  to  be 
described  as  charm.  .  .  .  '  The  Herb  Moon '  is  as  clever  as  most  ol 
its  predecessors,  and  !ir  less  arUficial."— 


1,  Adelphi  Terrace,  London,  W.G. 


A  NEW  POPULAR  EDITION. 


The  Works  of 

Mark  Rutherford. 

Bach  Volume  Crown  8vo,  Cloth,  Is.  net. 


LIST  OF  VOLUMES. 

THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  MARK 
RUTHERFORD, 
MARK  RUTHERFORD'S  DELIVERANCE. 
THE  REVOLUTION  IN  TANNER'S  LANE. 
MIRIAM'S  SCHOOLING. 
CATHARINE  FURZE. 


"It  is  impossible  to  name  after  Mark  Rutherford  a  «°Yf ^i^/^ 
stirred  a  pity  so  deep  and  wide  with  less  appearance  of  making  a  busmess 
of  tears." — Athenaum. 

"Something  unique  in  modern  English  literature. "-C.  F.  G. 
Masterman  in  the  Daily  News. 

"The  works  of  Mark  Rutherford  have  done  more  for  me  by  a  great 
deal  than  the  works  of  any  other  living  author."-Dr  Robertson  N^oU  m 
the  British  Weekly.  ,  „  a 

<'Will  always  live  in  the  history  of  the  English  Novel.  -Edward 
Garnett  in  the  Speaker. 


Crotvn  8w,  Cloth,  bs. 

PAGES  FROM  A  JOURNAL. 

Crown  Zvo,  Cloth,  y.  6d. 

CLARA  HOPGOOD. 


T.  FISHER  UNWIN,  Publisher, 
1,  Adblphi  Terrace,  London,  W.C 


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